New Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola has voiced concerns about his team's ability to sustain the required performance level for entire matches, following two consecutive pre-season games where the team relinquished a two-goal advantage.
Liverpool suffered a defeat against Monaco on Sunday, despite holding a 2-0 lead through goals from Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz. Monaco completed a comeback with goals from Aleksandr Golovin, Mika Biereth, and Paris Brunner. This marks the second successive pre-season match in which Liverpool has squandered a two-goal lead. Notably, captain Virgil van Dijk conceded a penalty in his first pre-season appearance, which Iraola identified as a turning point in the match.
Iraola expressed frustration with his side's inability to maintain a consistent performance throughout the 90 minutes, with the Premier League opener against Newcastle just 13 days away.
"We played a really good first-half, but right now, we don’t have much more in terms of the level required to play like this (over 90 minutes)," Iraola told LFCTV. "Monaco were much better in the second-half in the same way we were better in the first half. They deserved to turn the game around."
He further elaborated on the team's current limitations. "We won the first two pre-season games, but in the last two we couldn't sustain the level that we want throughout the game," he said. "As soon as we made some changes, they started to get tired, so we have work to do.
The primary issue, according to Iraola, is the team's energy reserves for a full 90 minutes. "The problem right now is they probably don’t have energy for 90 minutes. It will take time - we’ll do more training with them," he stated. "We can take a lot of positives, but also a lot of negatives from today."