Andoni Iraola has emerged as a name in the next Liverpool manager odds conversation after a post on X claimed the club had decided not to continue with Arne Slot for the 26/27 season. The account, ChrisRoyceWords, said on Thursday morning that Liverpool had already made the call over the weekend after talks with senior players, and later added that Slot would take charge of the final game of the season on Sunday.
The same post said Liverpool were looking for a head coach rather than a manager and that no decision had yet been made on who would replace Slot. The claim immediately pushed Iraola, Bournemouth’s head coach, into the frame. Heskey said the Spaniard has the capabilities and called him “a very, very intelligent coach,” while also describing his style as gung ho and attractive for Liverpool supporters who want entertaining football.
Heskey said he liked what Iraola has done and argued that the Bournemouth job is not the same as Liverpool, a distinction that has dogged many candidates linked with the Anfield post. He pointed to the way Liverpool played under Jurgen Klopp and in Slot’s first season, saying the team has since drifted toward a more possession-based approach. “But we want that entertainment,” Heskey said, adding: “That’s Iraola.”
There is also a wider layer to the speculation. Liverpool had taken just one point from their last three Premier League fixtures and were clinging to the final Champions League spot when the claims surfaced, leaving the club under pressure at exactly the moment rumours about a possible managerial change gathered pace. Xabi Alonso had long been linked with Liverpool earlier in the season, but that route now looks less straightforward after he moved to Chelsea, at least in the version of events being discussed by pundits and online accounts.
John Arne Riise used that move to argue that Liverpool would already have made contact if they were genuinely preparing to move on from Slot. He said Xabi Alonso would have waited for Liverpool and that, if the club had been thinking about letting Slot go, they would have spoken to Alonso already and kept him informed. Riise said Alonso was the obvious choice for him and for everybody if Liverpool wanted a change, but added that the Chelsea move suggests no such talks took place.
For now, the noise around Liverpool is being driven by an unverified online claim rather than a formal club announcement, and that leaves the picture unsettled. What is clear is that the next Liverpool manager odds discussion has already moved beyond simple speculation: Slot’s future, Alonso’s absence and Iraola’s rise are now being measured against a team still fighting for Champions League football and trying to steady its season before Sunday.
