Liverpool's Anfield fortress crumbles under Iraola as home form reaches crisis point

Andoni Iraola arrived at Liverpool knowing that restoring Anfield to its old self would be essential to his success. Right now, that restoration looks a long way off.

The manager's unbeaten run in the Premier League—ten wins and thirteen draws across twenty-four games stretching back to January, including his time at Bournemouth—ended decisively on Sunday afternoon. Liverpool played well for most of the match against Manchester City, a team that had arrived on Merseyside with a perfect record. For sixty minutes, the home side matched their visitors. Then Ryan Gravenberch was sent off, and everything unraveled. City scored three times in the chaos that followed, leaving Liverpool with nothing. Iraola acknowledged the shift in his post-match analysis: the first game, before the red card, belonged to Liverpool; the second game, after it, belonged to City.

But the defeat sits within a larger pattern that should concern anyone watching from the Anfield stands. Liverpool are now winless in five consecutive Premier League home matches—four draws and one loss. That streak stretches back into last season. In the thirteen Premier League games Liverpool have played at Anfield since the start of the year, they have won just four. Over that same period, they have won more matches away from home than at home. The numbers tell a story that contradicts everything Anfield once represented: a place where visiting teams arrived already beaten, where the crowd's intensity and the team's dominance made possession itself feel like a luxury opponents could not afford.

Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes noticed the shift. When Jurgen Klopp managed Liverpool, he said, the crowd was a weapon—teams would arrive knowing they faced not just eleven players but twelve thousand voices pressing down on them. That atmosphere seems to have evaporated. Visiting sides now move the ball with comfort, take up space without fear. Nicky Butt, Scholes' old teammate, remembered when even Fulham would arrive at Anfield already defeated. That Liverpool is gone.

The immediate problem is simpler and more concrete: Liverpool cannot score. They have managed seven league goals all season. Only seven teams in the Premier League have fewer. At Anfield specifically, they have scored just twice in three home matches. Manchester City, by contrast, has scored sixteen. When the cameras cut to the Main Stand during Sunday's match, three of Liverpool's most dangerous attacking players—Alexander Isak, Cody Gakpo, and Dominik Szoboszlai—were watching from the stands with injuries. Those three account for six of the seven goals Liverpool have scored this season. In their absence, Lewis Koumas, a twenty-one-year-old, worked hard but lacks the finishing touch required at this level.

The real question mark hangs over Florian Wirtz and Bradley Barcola, the expensive signings brought in to transform Liverpool's attack. Both carry price tags exceeding one hundred million pounds. In the fifty-fifth minute, with the score still level, Wirtz found himself with acres of space to his left—Milos Kerkez and Barcola both available—and chose instead to shoot. The ball sailed wide. It was the kind of moment that defines matches, and neither player showed anywhere near the quality their fees suggest they possess.

Iraola spoke after the match with the measured tone of a manager trying to find positives in a defeat. He was proud of his players' work rate, he said. He learned things from a performance like this. But beneath the diplomatic language lies an urgent task: he must get his expensive attacking players to deliver, and he must do it quickly. Anfield's reputation as a fortress has not simply faded—it is actively being dismantled, one home match at a time. Restoring it is no longer a nice-to-have; it is the foundation on which everything else depends.