Liverpool's Home Campaign Begins: Iraola's Vision at Anfield

Anfield waits. The noise will tell the story.

On Saturday afternoon, Nottingham Forest become the first visitors to L4 in the 2026-27 Premier League season, and for Andoni Iraola it marks the true beginning of his Liverpool tenure on home soil. Pre-season friendlies against AS Monaco and Como 1907 gave him a taste of the place. This, though, is the real thing.

He has already walked the touchline, already felt the murmur build into a roar in July. But he knows the volume changes when points are at stake, when the Kop senses jeopardy and opportunity in equal measure.

In his first Anfield league programme notes as head coach, Iraola leans straight into that bond between team and terrace. The day, he writes, is one the supporters have had circled since the fixtures dropped in June. The feeling is mutual in the dressing room.

“The first game of the season at your own ground is always special,” he tells the fans, making it clear that players, staff and head coach feel the same anticipation. Those summer dates with Monaco and Como were more than fitness exercises; they were a first chance to live the Anfield experience together. The backing then, he says, could not have been appreciated more.

But he draws a clear line. The “shared Anfield journey” only truly starts when there is something tangible on the table. When a mistake costs you, when a late goal changes a table, not just a mood.

Iraola knows this stadium from the other side. He has stood here as an opposition manager and seen how quickly Anfield can tilt a contest. That memory shapes his demand now: the responsibility, he insists, lies with him and his players to give the crowd something to feed on.

If the energy is right on the pitch, he argues, it will be right in the stands. The team and the supporters can feed off each other, and in a league of fine margins that connection can be a weapon. The aim, as he frames it, is simple: start the home campaign by bringing the best out of one another.

This has been on his mind since June, from the moment he took the job. The passion of Liverpool fans is not a resource to be dipped into now and then; it is something the team has to harness fully. For Iraola, this club is special precisely because of the people around it. Football here is not a passive act. It is participation, with all the emotion that entails.

He wants his players to drive that emotion with their football. To identify with the people, with the city, with the values that have long defined Liverpool. If they can carry that identity into matches, he believes their chances of hitting their own internal targets rise sharply. That, he says, is the challenge. And he wants everyone – on the pitch, on the bench, in the stands – to embrace it.

Saturday, then, is framed as the start of something, not a one-off occasion. Iraola does not hide his excitement about what might lie ahead.

He is also realistic. The short time together means Liverpool are nowhere near the finished article. Last weekend’s trip to Newcastle United underlined both sides of that reality: evidence of work already done and a clear reminder of what still needs to be built. For the coach, that gap is not a source of anxiety but part of the thrill.

He looks at the squad and sees quality. More importantly, he sees potential – players who can grow together over days, weeks and months into a team that reflects his ideas and the club’s identity. That process will take time.

What it will not do, he stresses, is dilute expectation. He still expects to win now. That is the standard he sets for every game. It is not about planting a flag somewhere in the distant future and waiting. Liverpool, as he puts it, must challenge themselves to be competitive from day one. Picking up results while adapting to new methods and new relationships is a crucial part of that early phase.

Nottingham Forest provide the next examination. Recent seasons have shown them to be an awkward, stubborn opponent, exactly the kind of side that can turn an opening home game into a scrap if allowed to settle. This, Iraola says, is what the Premier League is: a constant run of big tests, teams arriving at stadiums like Anfield desperate to make a statement.

Liverpool must be ready for that edge, that ambition. Ready to meet it, and then to impose their own.

Above all, in Iraola’s eyes, they must be prepared to squeeze every drop out of Anfield.