Ngumoha and Kerkez Both Have Everything to Gain From Iraola’s Arrival

After the way last season fell apart, Liverpool arriving in pre-season with a new head coach feels less like a formality and more like a genuine reset. New voices tend to expose old habits fast, and according to the Liverpool Echo, the early signs of Andoni Iraola’s impact are already visible as the squad prepares to fly out to Chicago for the club’s United States tour.

Everywhere Needs Improving, and Everyone Knows It

There is no getting around the basic point here. Liverpool need to be better in almost every area of the pitch, and the friendlies against Sunderland, Leeds United and Wrexham that make up this tour are nominally low stakes, but for Iraola they double as auditions. His World Cup contingent will not join the group until later, more transfer business is still expected, and the head coach needs a genuine, unfiltered look at exactly what he has inherited before he can start shaping it.

Framed that way, an obvious question follows: which current player stands to gain the most from Iraola taking charge? Two names keep coming up, and both make sense for very different reasons, Rio Ngumoha and Milos Kerkez.

Kerkez Gets the Reset He Probably Needed

Of the two, Kerkez is arguably the more instructive case. He is, by some distance, the player in the squad best placed to benefit from working under Iraola again, having already thrived under him at Bournemouth. His first season at Anfield did not go to plan, and there is no real point dressing that up. Liverpool paid roughly forty million pounds for a full back who had just been named in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year, and what they got in return fell short of that billing.

None of that changes the fact that Liverpool signed a proven Premier League performer rather than a gamble on potential, someone who had flourished specifically within the high intensity, front foot style Iraola likes his full backs to play. If that environment got the best out of him once already, there is a reasonable case that Liverpool should expect something closer to that level again now the same coach is back in charge of him.

Ngumoha Is the One Supporters Want to See Unleashed

Ngumoha represents something different but equally compelling. He is exactly the type of teenage talent supporters instinctively want to back. If a seventeen year old is genuinely good enough, the argument goes, just play him. Let him run at defenders, let him make mistakes without being buried for them, and let him develop in real matches rather than in cotton wool. Fans tend to buy into that kind of boldness almost immediately because it feels honest, and there has been more than enough flat, cautious football at Anfield over the past year to last everyone a while.

Our View: This Tour Is About Energy as Much as Results

Our sense is that the biggest thing riding on this US trip is not the scoreline in any of the three friendlies, it is whether the team looks alive again. Supporters will forgive a lot if the group looks committed, aggressive and switched on, and Kerkez flying forward with real purpose down the left would go a long way toward answering last season’s questions without a single word needing to be said about what went wrong before.

If Iraola can restore that edge, and if players like Ngumoha and Kerkez respond the way this reporting suggests they might, the mood around Anfield heading into the new season could shift very quickly indeed. Pre-season optimism is cheap and everyone knows it, but this particular case feels worth taking seriously.

Two Very Different Routes to the Same Outcome

What makes Ngumoha and Kerkez such an interesting pair to consider together is how differently they arrive at the same opportunity. One is a teenager with almost nothing to lose and a manager who, on early evidence, seems willing to trust young legs over cautious selection. The other is an established senior professional trying to rediscover form he has already shown he possesses, working under the one coach who has already unlocked it once before. Liverpool supporters have seen both types of story before, but rarely two of them unfolding at the same time within the same position group.

There is a reasonable argument that Kerkez’s situation is actually the more instructive test of Iraola’s early impact. Bringing through a promising academy prospect is, in football terms, a relatively straightforward decision once the talent is obviously there. Rehabilitating a struggling, expensive signing’s confidence and output is a much harder managerial task, and if Iraola manages it quickly, that says a great deal about his man management as well as his tactical approach.

The Friendlies Themselves Still Matter a Little

None of this means the results in Chicago are entirely irrelevant, even if they are being treated here mostly as a backdrop. Beating or losing to Sunderland, Leeds United or Wrexham will not define the season, but performances against senior Premier League and Championship opposition still carry more weight than a typical training ground practice match, and how both Ngumoha and Kerkez perform specifically in those moments will shape early impressions among supporters watching from home just as much as it shapes Iraola’s thinking.

There is also a psychological element worth mentioning. A poor pre-season can occasionally follow a player into the opening weeks of a real campaign, just as a bright one can build real momentum. Given how flat parts of last season felt, a version of Kerkez that looks sharp and aggressive again in the US, even in fixtures that do not count for anything competitively, would do a lot to settle nerves among a fanbase understandably still cautious after his difficult debut year at the club.

What Would Count as a Genuine Success in Chicago

If we are setting a marker for what a good tour looks like, it is not really about goals or clean sheets. It is about Ngumoha getting sustained minutes rather than token substitute appearances, and about Kerkez visibly playing with the same aggression and directness that made him one of the Premier League’s most exciting full backs before he ever arrived at Anfield. Get both of those things right in the space of three friendlies, and Iraola will have already answered one of the more pressing questions hanging over his early tenure.