1.95 metres per second, the number that got Iraola the job
No Premier League side moved the ball upfield faster than Bournemouth over the last three seasons. An average of 1.95 metres per second. Only Everton played fewer passes per sequence than the Cherries’ 2.98.
Andoni Iraola is now at Anfield, and Arne Slot is not. This was never only about the table, though the table was grim enough. Liverpool finished fifth, 25 points behind Arsenal and 24 short of the total that had won them the title a year earlier. A fall that steep, on that budget, does not get waved through. The flat, joyless football the crowd sat through finished the argument.
The stylistic fit is almost too neat. Across those same three years, only one club took more shots on the break than Bournemouth’s 128 in the league. That club was Liverpool, with 155. And the English game is drifting that way regardless: shots from counters have climbed from 0.78 per match in 2020-21 to 1.75 last season.
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£245m of talent that has yet to show up
Liverpool spent £225m on Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak last summer, closer to £245m once add-ons are counted. The club had never gone that heavy in a single window.
The return has been slow. Wirtz ended the season with seven goals and eight assists in 49 games across all competitions. Isak managed four goals and one assist in 22, held back first by a bruising exit from Newcastle and then by a broken leg in the December win at Tottenham.
The comparison is uncomfortable because it is so recent. In 2024-25, the season before their moves, the German posted 16 goals and 14 assists in 45 matches for Bayer Leverkusen and the Swede 27 goals and six assists in 42 for Newcastle. Sixty-three goal involvements between them. With Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate all gone, Liverpool would take that in a heartbeat.
One flaw follows Iraola from Dorset into a dressing room that already had it. Liverpool conceded 11 Premier League goals from corners last season. Only West Ham (15) and Leeds (12) shipped more. Count free-kicks and throw-ins and the figure reaches 20, level with Crystal Palace and, yes, Bournemouth.
The Basque has carved the work up. Tommy Elphick takes the defensive side, Shaun Cooper the attacking routines, with analyst Lewis Mahoney alongside them. Nobody is pretending this is anything other than a rebuild. One small comfort travels with him, mind: Bournemouth are technically on an 18-match unbeaten league run, the longest anyone managed last season.
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