Former Everton boss Sean Dyche has insisted his claim that new Liverpool head coach Andoni Iraola plays 'lower league football' was actually a ringing endorsement of the Reds boss.
Dyche turned heads on Monday when he recalled coming up against Iraola's Bournemouth, against whom he earned a 3-0 victory in their first meeting in October 2023 only to go on to lose their next three meetings before he was sacked in January last year.
Dyche's Original Comments on Iraola
Recalling those games, Dyche told The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast, in partnership with Midnite: “Iraola basically plays lower league football, but at a high level. They turn you and turn you, and force you into submission. We ran all over them at Everton, when he was at Bournemouth. The next time we played them, they looked a different outfit.”
Dyche's comments weren't well received by many Liverpool supporters online, but speaking on talkSPORT on Tuesday the former Burnley and Nottingham Forest boss insisted he was being complimentary.
Clarification on TalkSPORT
“The stories are coming back out now, almost making out that I was doing him down by saying he played high-level lower league football,” said Dyche. “It was a massive compliment, I didn’t mean it in that way and they know I didn’t because I always said it as a compliment. There’s nothing wrong with getting the ball forward, they do it with real ability, players have a very high ability.”
“Some of those Bournemouth players are ever so underrated, well they’re not so much now, and lifting it behind teams, asking questions, wide players running at teams, putting teams under pressure, pressing from the off. Like a variant of a 4-4-2, two midfielders working their socks off, doing all the ugly hard yards, but with some ability as well.”
Dyche on Iraola's Style at Liverpool
Dyche added that Iraola's style could work better at Liverpool given the higher calibre of player he will be working with. “But I wonder whether Iraola is going to take that thinking into a Liverpool camp, which to be fair it’s not that dissimilar to the end of Klopp’s reign,” said Dyche. “Playing a lot of longer passes, a lot more quality longer passes because as soon as I say that people think I’m doing them down. I’m not, I’m complimenting these players.”
“If you’re a Premier League player and you can’t pass it 30 or 40 yards, you shouldn’t be a Premier League player. So there’s nothing wrong with a longer pass and I think Iraola will use that wisely, particularly with a higher level. Even more higher level than the Bournemouth players have proved to be.”
