The win against Bournemouth was a decent one, with the Cherries proving to be tough opposition for most teams who turn up to the Vitality Stadium hoping to get an easy ride. We didn’t play particularly brilliantly, but I’m honestly not sure what a lot of people are expecting from a team that has undergone a huge amount of change in recent years, working with a manager who has barely had time to unpack his boxes since his arrival in the summer. Add in the fact that Andoni Iraola was heading back to his former club for the first time and it’s easy to see why it is that we didn’t exactly play scintillating stuff. The truth of the matter is that we don’t need to just yet. The only thing that matters at this stage of the campaign is that we get the points on the board. Personally, I think it’s entirely unrealistic to put together a title challenge, but if we are hoping to do so, then we just need to stay within touching distance of Manchester City right now.
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Alexander Isak’s goal proved to be the difference as Liverpool secured all three points against Bournemouth. ✅
A match-winning contribution from the Swede!
#AlexanderIsak #Liverpool #PremierLeague #BettiiScores
— Bettitude (@bettitude.bsky.social) 20 September 2026 at 22:13
In previous jobs, Enzo Maresca has started seasons well before going through a bit of a fallow patch towards the end of the season, so entirely the same thing can be expected here. The bad news is that we’re facing City straight after the international break, when our players are notoriously slow to find their rhythm. There is an argument that the fact that we haven’t had any rhythm anyway may actually help us out this time around, added to the fact that Iraola will have been working with the players that stayed behind for a decent length of time, getting his methods into them. The Spaniard hasn’t lost a game since January, which is the kind of confidence in his own abilities that the players will also pick up on. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve notched up three clean sheets in succession, as we’ve tightened up well at the back. There are still plenty of issues, but we look like a team heading in the right direction, putting points on the board as we do.
A Season in Transition
When Jürgen Klopp announced that he would be leaving Liverpool, everyone in football said that the Reds would fall off a cliff in the months that followed. Instead, the boffins went to work bringing in Arne Slot, who kept the bandwagon rolling and won us number 20. Whether he would’ve been able to continue that run of success in the following campaign is something that we’ll never know, given the manner in which the tragic passing of Diogo Jota changed absolutely everything. Last season was bordering on disastrous, with the only thing that worked in our favour being the fact that we stumbled into a Champions League place. There was a ludicrous amount of mitigation around what happened, but the vast majority of people are unwilling to even so much as mention it when discussing Liverpool in 2025-2026. It is a big part of the reason why I think we’d all benefit from just wiping the entire season from our memory and starting afresh.
Andoni Iraola’s high-intensity system could make Liverpool incredibly dangerous, but tactical transition takes time. Realistically, securing a Top 4 spot is the baseline. What’s your realistic Premier League prediction for Liverpool this season?
— Premier League News (@plnews.bsky.social) 14 August 2026 at 13:08
Imagine a world in which Slot won the title and decided that he’d done all he could do as Liverpool manager, resigning on the back of it. The club appoints Andoni Iraola this summer and we all know that the season of transition that we expected to happen when Klopp decided to head off into the sunset would be arriving now. Players that struggled last time out, such as Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz, would be heading into this campaign as new arrivals and would be given far more leeway to find their feet than they’re being afforded by some people. Instead of talking about how unfit we looked last season, we would all be aware that the players wouldn’t look at their best thanks to the World Cup that took place in the summer and the expectations would be much lower than they have been. Slot, meanwhile, would be remembered with the respect that a title-winning manager deserves, rather than the constant sly digs he gets now.
Pulling in the Same Direction
Any time that someone talks about last season in a negative way, I find myself having to take deep breaths in order to stop my blood from boiling. I have covered time and again my anger at the manner in which some people decided to completely ignore the effect that Diogo Jota’s death would have on the players, including the lack of pre-season, which I remember Jürgen Klopp constantly told us was the most important period of time to get fitness into the squad. I still find myself shaking my head in frustration when people talk of the 2025-2026 campaign as though it was an entirely normal one, which I imagine is something that winds some of the players up a fair bit too. Liverpool as a football club is at its best when everyone is pulling in the same direction, wanting the same outcome, rather than split into factions that are seemingly at war with one another. Remove last season from the conversation as a concept and that’s more likely to happen.
Thrilled (and a little surprised) by that Liverpool win. Big 3pts for #LFC v Bournemouth. Important to win a few ugly games over the course of a season. Absolutely love the young guys off the bench. Nyoni, Munoz and Koumas work their asses off and feels like a few goals are coming from them.
— Tom Ochs (@tomochs.bsky.social) 20 September 2026 at 16:33
Liverpool supporters have grown used to the Reds challenging for the biggest honours, thanks to the manner in which Jürgen Klopp entirely changed the mindset around the football club. Although that is obviously a good thing, it is also the case that some people have since developed unrealistic expectations, when you take into account how much change there has been at Anfield in recent years. Removing last season from our collective memories would mean that we all get to give the manager and the players time to bed in, whilst hoping that they’re able to push on once they get to understand how the other works. It is a big step up for Iraola from Bournemouth to Liverpool, but the weekend’s win at his old home was proof that we can dog out a result like the best of them. Expectations aren’t too high, but we would all benefit from adding the 2025-2026 season into Room 101 and work together to help the Reds achieve success moving forward.
Good football context here. I especially appreciated that it looks beyond the headline result and into what it might mean next, which is where supporter expectations really start to shift.