Premier League: Iraola's Liverpool Are Unbeaten — So Why Does Anfield Feel Anxious?

LIVERPOOL — Nobody is beating Liverpool. Nobody needs to — the Reds are drawing with themselves just fine. Five league games into the Andoni Iraola era, the Premier League's most confusing team heads into the international break unbeaten in every competition and sitting sixth: nine points won, six dropped. Hard to beat, yes. Easy to stall, absolutely — and Anfield is getting restless.

The ledger tells the story of a project stuck between gears. Draws at Newcastle and Nottingham Forest opened the campaign, then came the false dawn: a league win over Ipswich Town, a Champions League victory over Atletico Madrid, a 3-1 Carabao Cup dispatch of Tottenham, a 1-0 grind at Iraola's old stomping ground Bournemouth. Progress — until Fulham came to Anfield and left with a point from a drab 0-0 that said more about this team than any of the wins. As Reuters reported, apart from Victor Munoz clipping the crossbar, Liverpool barely laid a glove on a Fulham side that had lost its first three league games of the season.

The words afterwards were telling. "Today we lacked a lot of freshness," Iraola said. "We improved slightly in the second half after we started the first half slow but overall we lacked energy." Goalkeeper Alisson went further, telling reporters it was a "poor" performance: "Collectively, we didn't play well. Many things we tried to do, we couldn't do it well." When your goalkeeper is doing the manager's honest-talking for him, you have a vibe problem on top of a points problem.

But plenty is genuinely working. Liverpool have kept three consecutive Premier League clean sheets, their first such run since the spring of 2024, and the new centre-back pairing of Virgil van Dijk and summer arrival Jeremy Jacquet — standout performer at Bournemouth — already looks like the most important thing Iraola has built. Manchester City great Joe Hart told the BBC's Match of the Day that Alisson, Van Dijk and Jacquet are the trio Liverpool's season will stand or fall on: "If Liverpool is to kick on this season, those three players are going to be vital."

The captain is all in. Van Dijk told the Beast Mode On podcast: "He is a very demanding coach who lets us train a lot. I think that is good." Then: "He wants to play good football, show intensity and have fun while doing it." And the line the dressing room will be measured against: "I think it will go well for him this season." That is not a captain managing a quote. That is a captain buying in.

The unease sits further forward — and in the stands. Ryan Gravenberch, handed a new long-term deal in March after anchoring the 2024/25 title triumph, has started just twice in the league and played 21 minutes in the Champions League. Iraola keeps benching him — some supporters are delighted, convinced the coach is "learning" — but Jamie Carragher has warned the hierarchy won't see it that way for a £34.2m midfielder tied down to 2032. Florian Wirtz keeps producing "yet another poor game," as Carragher said in the same analysis. For a club that spent big to evolve its attack, the attack is the thing not evolving.

Emile Heskey isn't convinced the squad can carry the weight. In comments reported by Read Liverpool FC, his warning was blunt: the squad is a bleak one — thinner on real quality than a title-ready side should be, and results alone don't settle the argument. It's a fair counter to the clean-sheet optimism: three straight shutouts are wonderful, but Conor Bradley, Giovanni Leoni, Federico Chiesa and Hugo Ekitike being unavailable at once is how title challenges die in November.

The voices of patience are real, too. Jamie Redknapp has urged calm, pointing at Iraola's Bournemouth history: he started slowly there as well, and nobody doubts how that turned out. Jurgen Klopp told ESPN he has "no idea" what went wrong under Arne Slot last season — then added: "Andoni Iraola is a great coach as well. But it has to click, it has to work together for a long time and for that you need luck." Internally, according to transfer journalist Ben Jacobs, there is "total confidence" in Iraola among a hierarchy that also installed Julian Ward as sporting director. No panic in the corridors.

Outside the corridors, though, the Alonso drumbeat won't die. Former striker Dean Saunders has tipped Xabi Alonso — now Chelsea head coach, with two wins, two defeats and a draw from five league games, as Liverpool.com reported — to eventually take the Liverpool job. The irony is thick: Alonso was the fans' choice when Klopp left in 2024, the clamour peaked as Slot's title defence collapsed into fifth, and Chelsea simply moved first, confirming Alonso in May, a little under two weeks before Slot departed on May 30. Nobody needs to connect the dots for Anfield.

And now the dots come with a date. Liverpool host Chelsea at Anfield in the Carabao Cup fourth round in the week commencing October 26, as Sky Sports confirmed — a reunion for Alonso and the first real referendum on Iraola's Liverpool — before their first league meeting in early December. If Liverpool are still drawing games they should win by then, the Alonso noise won't be background hum. It will be the soundtrack.

So can this team contend? The last month gives the honest answer: nobody knows, because Liverpool haven't shown a full version of themselves yet. The defense is fixed, the intensity is real, the dressing room is bought in — and the attack is stalling, the midfield is being rotated like a combination lock, and six points are already gone. Enzo Maresca's Manchester City have won all five; they and Arsenal are the names being chased. The break arrives as a gift: three weeks to turn intensity into cutting edge. Unbeaten is a floor, not an identity — the ceiling gets decided in October.