Liverpool faced Sunderland in their first Pre-season friendly at GEODIS Park, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. A 4:2 victory for the Reds is the best way for Andoni Iraola to start as the new Liverpool head coach.
In the absence of the club’s key players, the coach travelled with 31 selection made up of young players from the youth ranks and a few of the senior team players. The Reds initially lined up with a 4-2-3-1 formation, starting Mamardashvili as the goalkeeper, ahead of Frederick Woodman.
For the defence positions, Jeremie Frimpong was started at right back, combining him with Joe Gomez and Talla Ndiaye in the centre back, and finally Kostas Tsimikas featured as the first-choice left back ahead of Milos Kerkez.
The midfield position was controlled by Curtis Jones, James McConnell, and Harvey Elliott, who played from the attacking midfield spot just behind the attacker.
Liverpool initially featured three (3) young stars at the front position; Kieran Morrison played from the right wing, Will Wright played as the striker, and the club’s wonderkid Rio Ngumoha played from his natural position on the left wing.
The Reds started the game strong, pouring in all the attacks and looked like the better side over the struggling Sunderland side. In the course of the play, the formation was shifted from 4-2-3-1 to a more comfortable 4-3-3 formation.
Regardless of Liverpool’s 4:2 victory over Sunderland, some important moments in the game kept fans on their toes; here is a breakdown.
Joe Gomez Knock on the 8th minute
In just 8 minutes of the game, Joe Gomez came off the pitch injured, although the injury looked less serious as he was seen smiling with the coach before walking into the tunnel. However, many fans saw Gomez’s injury as frustrating, as he has never been a reliable centre-back for Liverpool.
This early injury has brought back the conversation about Liverpool needing a more capable senior centre-back to hold that position and pair with Virgil Van Dijk. Liverpool already lost Ibrahima Konate to Real Madrid at the end of the 2025/2026 season and replaced him with Jeremie Jacquet.
With Gomez already injured, and the reliability of Jacquet and Leoni not yet proven, the quest for a new centre-back should begin to avoid a mid-season crisis.
The young Austrian defender Ifeanyi Ndukwe was immediately brought in as his replacement, which turned out to be a major boost for the Reds’ defence as he was solid on both aerial and ground duels, completing two major clearances to help Liverpool stay in the game.
The Scoreline Structure
Liverpool took an early lead in the game, with Kieran Morrison slotting in the pass from Harvey Elliott in the the 13 minutes of the game, a goal which marked the beginning of Liverpool’s USA pre-season tour and the first under Andoni Iraola.
Sunderland’s Enzo Le Fe brought the Reds’ dominance to a halt as he scored an equaliser in the 28th minute, bringing the game to a 1:1 draw, which remains the scoreline until the end of the first half.
Liverpool started the second half of the game by making some important substitutions that will go a long way to influence the tempo of the game;
Tsimikas was replaced by Kerkez, Elliott was replaced by Szoboszlai, Ngumoha was replaced by Koumas, Wright was replaced by Chiesa, and Jones was replaced by Nyoni. All these changes occurred in the 46 minutes, at the start of the second half.
Sunderland took the lead in the 49th minute, as Timur Tuterov’s shot hit the back of the net, bringing the scoreline to 2:1 in Favour of the black cats.
Liverpool’s Midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai brought the scoreline back to a tie after scoring in the 56th minute of the game, allowing the Reds to bounce back after falling behind earlier.
Iraola made some more changes in the 57th and 67th minutes of the game, with Scanlon replacing McConnell, Woodman replacing Mamardashvili in the goalkeeping position, Ramsay replacing Frimpong, Abe replacing Morrison, and Chamber replacing Ndiaye.
Federico Chiesa brought the scoreline to 3:2 giving Liverpool the lead in the 72nd minute, after converting the pass from Calvin Ramsay into a goal. Lewis Koumas sealed the victory for the Reds after scoring from a perfect pass from Dominik Szoboszlai, bringing the scoreline to 4:2.
What Iraola’s System Told Us at GEODIS Park
Iraola’s first match as Liverpool’s head coach was more than just the 4:2 scoreline; at first glance of play style, he gives fans a clue of what to expect ahead of the 2026/2027 season. What mattered most in the Sunderland game was performance, as Liverpool was already pressing more and players rotating positions in a very creative way.
What stood out more was the pressing into Sunderland’s own half, a style Liverpool lost under the management of Arne Slot. The first goal of the game came from the exact aggressive pattern, with Morrison producing a clean finish.
The lapses exposed at GEODIS Park were the after-effects of when the high pressing was turned over, which resulted in the goals scored by Enzo Le Fe and Timur Tutierov. This outcome shows Iraola’s tactics will deliver a lot of forward balls but could be disastrous if the first wave of the attack is broken.
The last piece of Iraola’s system is the mindset it brought to the squad; the players were not just ready to bring chaos to the opponent. Even after falling behind at the start of the second half, the pressing force was still present; this is what makes a team formidable.
