Just as the lads in charge of transfers are in danger of selling Andoni Iraola short, supporters can help their new man succeed at Anfield…
I HAD a slightly epiphanic moment in the ground on Saturday.
After Liverpool had equalised for the first (second) time, Anfield roared with both hope and expectation.
The new manager, clearly sensing this moment, delayed making a triple change in order to let the lads who had got the goal they needed harness the crowd’s energy they’d restored in order to get another.
And all I could think was, ‘get this goal and I’ll have my Liverpool back.’
Because I can’t really remember the last time the Anfield crowd had such hope and expectation in unison. New seasons always come with a flavour of that, but this certainly had a little bit extra on it.
So far, the manager has said all the right things, and even when there’s been uncertainty around the squad and the direction the people in charge of recruitment at the club are taking to improve it, we should want him and his players to win so that we can win with them again.
It’s where John Gibbons’ statement that went around clipped up on Twitter last week rings true: sometimes it feels like the football is just used as evidence to win arguments, rather than be the very centre of what we’re meant to be enjoying here – to paraphrase John.
Spot on @johngibbonsblog pic.twitter.com/1jKGOV999h
— Jay Jackson (@jayspencerj) August 27, 2026
Transfers have become the be-all and end-all in football, to the point that people are already moving to crown the clubs that have bought the most players as serious contenders once again – completely ignoring the context of how bad those squads were last season and how badly they needed new blood.
That’s not to say Liverpool don’t need recruitment, but that more than anything they need to get it right in terms of quality – not only quantity – and that’s where worries are festering to varying degrees among the supporter base.
However, Anfield should be the place we go to in order to get all those worries out of our system and to get behind the lads that are playing for us.
Instead, all too often, it has felt as though we are carrying the weight of those worries and arguments into the ground as we wait for our biases to be confirmed by what happens on the pitch.
Andoni Iraola may have the power to change that, but he also needs to be given the tools to do so, not only by those holding the purse strings, but by us as a fanbase too. We can be just as responsible for selling him short here, if we’re not careful.
Before he turned doubters into believers, Jürgen Klopp bemoaned that when chasing a game against Crystal Palace, fans gave up on his team and left the stadium early.
He told us he didn’t want to see that again.
He wanted us to give him the tools to turn our hopes around by opening our minds to the possibility that they might, without giving up hope based on our biases.
So while that go-ahead goal didn’t come on Saturday, and Iraola may well have only been holding his subs because the fourth official couldn’t get the board that allows them to happen ready any quicker, it occurred to me that I’m ready for my mind to be changed once again.
I’m ready to think that Saturday wasn’t just “more of the same” as some bemoaned in the pub after the game.
I’m ready to think that even if we don’t get both the name and number of signings that I think we need right, all hope isn’t lost.
Because I’m ready to have my Liverpool back.
That might mean I lose some arguments along the way, and I open myself up to heartbreak once again, but it isn’t the hope that kills us – it’s the hope that makes it all worthwhile.
Come on, Liverpool. Make us dream. Believe.
