Andoni Iraola's first game in the Anfield dugout was supposed to be a gentle pre-season formality. Instead, Liverpool blew a two-goal lead and lost 3-2 to Monaco, and the new head coach walked out afterwards to admit, bluntly, that his players simply cannot last a full match yet.
Liverpool were excellent for most of the first half. Alexander Isak opened the scoring in the 16th minute and Florian Wirtz doubled the lead in the 29th, giving the Anfield crowd an early glimpse of the front two Iraola inherited from Arne Slot's title-winning squad. Monaco pulled one back right on the stroke of half-time when Aleksandr Golovin converted a penalty in the 44th minute.
The second half belonged entirely to the visitors. Mika Biereth levelled in the 56th minute and Paris Brunner completed the turnaround with a late strike in the 88th, sending Iraola to defeat in front of his own supporters for the first time.
"Those who played their first or second match showed energy — the problem is that right now they probably don't have the energy for 90 minutes," Iraola said afterwards, quoted by ONE. He added that Liverpool had produced "a good first half" but lacked "much more" once the intensity was required for a full 90.
The Basque coach made wholesale changes at the interval, a pattern he has followed throughout pre-season as he tries to build up conditioning across the squad rather than chase clean results in friendlies. It meant a Liverpool side that looked sharp and cohesive for 45 minutes was unrecognisable by the final whistle.
It is not an isolated problem. A week earlier, on their pre-season swing through the United States, Liverpool led Leeds United 2-0 at half-time before collapsing to a 4-2 defeat, conceding three times inside 13 second-half minutes as their opponents introduced fresh legs off the bench. Iraola later described that defeat as the most "useful" of the tour precisely because of what it exposed.
The recurring theme — a bright first half undone by a second-half fade — is now the central concern of Iraola's early tenure. He took over at Anfield in June, succeeding Arne Slot, and has been open throughout the summer about needing time to adapt his squad, tactically and physically, to the demands he expects.
Sunday's defeat was still only a friendly, and Iraola's priority in these matches has been minutes and fitness over results. But with the Premier League season about to begin, twice losing a two-goal cushion in the space of a week is the kind of pattern he will want to have eliminated well before it starts to cost points that count.
