‘He is ready…’ – Andoni Iraola drops positive Liverpool team news hint for Atletico clash | OneFootball

Andoni Iraola has dropped an encouraging hint on one Liverpool player ahead of the Champions League clash against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night.

The 44-year-old takes charge of his first match in the competition tomorrow as Diego Simeone’s charges visit Anfield for the second September in a row, with the Reds having won 3-2 when the teams last met just under a year ago.

It could also be a first home appearance in red for Bradley Barcola, who made his debut off the bench in the 2-0 win at Ipswich on Friday night after his £106m transfer from Paris Saint-Germain in late August.

Iraola drops Barcola game-time hint before Atletico clash

The Frenchman played for nearly half an hour at Portman Road in what was his first game-time since the World Cup in mid-July, having not had a pre-season with PSG prior to his big-money move, but Iraola is confident that the 24-year-old can get a longer runout on Wednesday.

The Basque said of Barcola (via Liverpool Echo): “He is ready to play more minutes. He has been training quite normally. The only thing he hasn’t had [is] pre-season [matches], but he is in a really good place.”

(Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

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Will Barcola get his first Liverpool start tomorrow?

Even if the new signing had a ‘quiet debut’ against Ipswich on Friday (in the words of the Liverpool Echo‘s Theo Squires), getting those 26 minutes of game-time into his legs after several weeks of inactivity will feel like a load off for him.

The winger will have had a few more days of training with his new teammates as well ahead of the Atletico game, and while it’s unlikely that he’ll get the full match, it seems plausible that he could come in for his first start for the Reds tomorrow night.

Iraola might have one eye to the quick turnaround to playing Fulham on Saturday afternoon when he picks his team for the Champions League fixture, and it could be a case of pre-planning for Barcola to get 45-60 minutes against Simeone’s side so that he continues to make progress without being overloaded.

If the 24-year-old still needs careful managing, the good news is that Liverpool have an abundance of choice on the left flank between Cody Gakpo, Victor Munoz and Rio Ngumoha, with the Spaniard possibly lining out on the right against Atletico.

Hopefully the Frenchman’s first Anfield appearance in red will come from the start, but even if he has to be content with coming off the bench, he can be assured of a rapturous welcome from the home crowd tomorrow night.