ReactionAndoni Iraola on pre-season win over Sunderland: 'It will give us a good starting point'
Andoni Iraola says Liverpool have given themselves a 'good starting point to improve things' following their 4-2 pre-season victory over Sunderland.
The Reds took to the pitch for the first time on their tour of the USA at GEODIS Park in Nashville on Saturday, as preparations for 2026-27 continue.
Goals from Kieran Morrison, Dominik Szoboszlai, Federico Chiesa and Lewis Koumas saw Iraola's men claim a friendly win over their Premier League counterparts.
Following the game, Liverpool's head coach gave his post-match reaction to Liverpoolfc.com - read what he had to say below...
On the 'main positives' to take from the game…
I think it was different halves. Especially, they were a lot stronger in the first half. We kind of balanced both teams, and you could feel the difference. A lot of things to correct, obviously, it's the first day. You could feel the heavy legs, the players have been training. So, we lacked some freshness. But it will give us a good starting point to improve things. Probably the worst news has been straight away the injury of Joe [Gomez]. We were happy because we were kind of going through all the training without losing any player. Unluckily for us, straight away we've lost Joe.
On Gomez's injury early in the game and the absence of Jeremy Jacquet…
With Jeremy, we decided to take it easy with him. He has been a lot of months without playing with a shoulder injury. So, I think we are going to take it easy with him. He will play probably the last game of this US tour and he will have time to have minutes. It's true that we were kind of happy but we've lost one now.
On the opening goal showing Liverpool's intent...
It was difficult to put rhythm into the game. I think both teams were lacking some freshness and it was also humid. The pitch was quite slow. We had some good spells on the ball. I think we lacked a little bit of intensity. You can feel the timing is still not there. We have to work a lot more but it's a starting point.
On his team going after the game to try to win in the second half...
It was a matter of using the game to push ourselves and to go back to the rhythm that we should have. You play 45, 60 [or] whatever the minutes you play, use them properly. It doesn't matter the result but keep pushing, don't relax, get used to not playing too comfortable. We still have a lot of things to improve.
On the players returning for pre-season in the coming days...
They are already there in Chicago. They are waiting for us. Alex [Isak], Flo [Wirtz] and Ryan [Gravenberch]. They will start training from tomorrow with us and we still have two more games [in the USA]. I hope we use them properly and we go [forward] improving slowly, slowly the things that today didn't work.