Liverpool are wasting no time in their search for a new head coach, with the club set to open formal talks with Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola this week according to BBC Sport. It is a name that might have raised a few eyebrows when it first started doing the rounds, but honestly, the more you think about it, the more it makes a strange kind of sense.
Iraola has done something genuinely impressive at Bournemouth. He took a squad that many people expected to be fighting relegation and turned them into a side that plays with real identity, energy and tactical discipline. That is not easy to do at a club with their resources, and it tells you a lot about the man that he has managed it so convincingly.
Now, stepping up to Liverpool is a completely different challenge. This is a club that expects to compete for the Premier League title and go deep in the Champions League every single season. The pressure at Anfield is on a different level entirely compared to the south coast, and whoever walks through that door needs to hit the ground running with no excuses and no settling-in period.
As a Manchester United fan, it is a little bit painful to admit that Liverpool tend to get these appointments right. They found Klopp when nobody else was looking in that direction, and he turned out to be one of the best managers in the world. There is every chance the people at Liverpool have spotted something in Iraola that the rest of us are still catching up on.
The fact that formal talks are opening this week suggests Liverpool are fairly serious about this rather than just kicking the tyres. Whether a deal gets done is another matter, because Bournemouth will not exactly be thrilled about losing him, and Iraola himself will need to decide if he is ready for that step up right now.
It is shaping up to be a very interesting week at Anfield, and the rest of the Premier League will be watching closely to see how this one plays out. Let me know your thoughts.