Andoni Iraola: Five things Liverpool head coach learnt in first game in charge against Sunderland

Andoni Iraola kicked off his Liverpool reign with a 4-2 win against Sunderland in Nashville on Saturday - so what did the new Reds head coach learn in his first outing in charge?

It already seemed a risk going into the new season having Jeremy Jacquet, Joe Gomez and Giovanni Leoni as contenders to be captain Virgil van Dijk's centre-back partner given the fitness doubts over the trio.

For a start, Leoni is still "months" away from recovering from the season-ending ACL he suffered on his Reds debut last September having only joined the club from Parma last summer.

Jacquet has also recently returned from a shoulder injury that he sustained just days after agreeing to join Liverpool in February. He then missed the win over Sunderland due to a minor knock.

All of which meant the injury-prone Gomez started and captained the team in Tennessee, with the long-serving defender lasting all of 10 minutes before being forced off in what Iraola called "the worst news" of the day.

And while it looked to be no more than a muscle problem for the 29-year-old, it was also a reminder that Liverpool cannot rely on Gomez to stay fit for an extended period of time and so need to go into the market to sign another defender before the summer window shuts on September 1.

It was the chorus of boos that rang out around Anfield at the end of his side's tepid draw with Chelsea in May that signalled Arne Slot's time was up as Liverpool head coach.

It came just 12 months after the Dutchman had held the Premier League trophy aloft in front of an ecstatic Kop. But the slow, possession-heavy style of football, with the ball endlessly shuffled from one flank to the other, combined with a downturn in results, had turned the home fans against him.

His successor favours a different type of football, however, explaining his vision in his first press conference as Liverpool head coach as this: "I want my team to be energetic. I want to be dynamic, to play in the opposition half as much as we can, sometimes on the ball, sometimes without the ball, and try to suffocate the opposition."

And while it is impossible to make any firm conclusions after one 90-minute runout using 22 players, there were certainly glimpses of this in Nashville, especially for the Reds' first and last goals.

In fact, Kieran Morrison's 13th-minute opener came after a free-flowing move involving some impressive build-up play from the likes of James McConnell, Rio Ngumoha and Harvey Elliott, while Lewis Koumas's late strike came about after some excellent counter-pressing.