Andoni Iraola has made a good start to life at Anfield. He could be a perfect fit.

Andoni Iraola is going to be a big name in English football. I have a feeling about this man.

There are managers who inherit good players and managers who make good players better. There are managers who spend fortunes and managers who understand how to get the best out of what they have. The latter are a rarer breed. Iraola belongs in that category.

Look at what he achieved at Bournemouth. A club with a stadium holding around 10,000 people finished sixth in the Premier League. They were competing against clubs with bigger squads and vastly more expensive players.

Bournemouth did not finish sixth by accident. Iraola ensured they were not afraid of anybody.

Now look at Liverpool. The early evidence suggests that Iraola has the qualities required to manage a club of that size. He is calm and is prepared to make difficult decisions without turning everything into a drama. I like that in a manager.

Wednesday’s Carabao Cup tie against Chelsea was instructive. Now I must first ask, what is the point of Liverpool playing Chelsea for the privilege of reaching the quarter-finals of a competition that already places another demand on an overcrowded calendar? It is a fair question.

English football has become obsessed with playing more matches. Sunday, Tuesday, Saturday. Then Europe. Then another domestic fixture. The players are expected to keep going until their bodies give way.

Four players went off with hamstring injuries. That is a terrible outcome. A hamstring injury can destroy a season and leave a player struggling for months to recover his best form.

The authorities want more football because more football means more money. They are less interested in what it does to the players.

But the Carabao Cup tie also demonstrated why we continue to watch. There was a competitive game between two big clubs, and there was a young Liverpool player who caught my attention.

Rio Ngumoha has something I thought the modern game was in danger of losing. He is a winger who wants to beat his opponent. He has pace and does not appear to need a committee meeting before deciding to take a defender on. I love that.

The great wingers changed games. They frightened defenders. They entertained the crowd. They made football an adventure. Too many young players are now coached to keep possession and follow instructions. Ngumoha looks as though he wants to make things happen.

A manager has to recognise that talent and give it room to develop. Iraola has been prepared to give the youngster opportunities. That is encouraging.

Chelsea, for their part, remain an expensive puzzle. They have spent more money than any club in Premier League history, yet there is still a sense that the pieces have not come together. Reece James is facing a lengthy spell out with injury, Cole Palmer was suspended and they have had difficult performances to contend with.

They have players. The question is whether they have a team.

Xabi Alonso has a formidable reputation after taking Bayer Leverkusen through an entire Bundesliga season unbeaten. He then flopped at Real Madrid. Can he reproduce the Leverkusen form in England? I have my doubts. The Premier League is unforgiving and the pressure at a club like Chelsea is immense.

But Iraola interests me more because he has already shown what he can do without the resources available to the biggest clubs. And now there is Florian Wirtz.

Liverpool paid £125 million for him last year. That is an extraordinary sum of money, even in a game that has lost all sense of proportion. He arrived with enormous expectations and initially struggled to impose himself. The weight of the fee, the demands of Anfield and the speed of the Premier League can be difficult for any player.

Under Iraola, Wirtz looks more confident than he did last year. That is a significant development. A good manager does not simply tell a player what he is doing wrong. He works out why the player is struggling and helps him find a solution.

Footballers are human beings. They have doubts. They lose confidence. They can be overwhelmed by expectation. A manager who understands that can make a difference worth far more than another expensive signing. Iraola appears to understand it.

He does not panic when things go wrong. He changes the team when he needs to. He is prepared to leave established players on the bench. He gives young players a chance and expects everyone to accept responsibility.

There is a clarity about his methods that I find impressive. His teams play at a good tempo. They know what they are trying to do. They compete.

And every game matters to him, even the Carabao Cup. That is the attitude you want at Liverpool. You cannot decide that a competition is beneath you simply because it does not offer the glamour of the Champions League. The supporters pay to see their team compete. The manager has a responsibility to give them that.

There is, however, a contradiction at the heart of the modern game. We want managers to demand intensity, players to compete in every match and young talents to emerge. Then we fill the calendar to the point where the players can barely keep going.

Iraola cannot solve that problem on his own. Nobody can. The authorities must accept that the human body has limits, regardless of the money involved. But he can make a difference to the football itself.

What he did at Bournemouth was remarkable. What he might do with Liverpool's resources is a prospect worth watching. He has shown that he can build a team, improve players and make sensible decisions under pressure.

Those are the qualities that matter. Not the size of the wage bill or the noise surrounding a manager's appointment.

Iraola has earned his reputation the hard way. He has done the work. He has demonstrated that his ideas can succeed in the Premier League.

I believe he is going to be the man to watch. And if Liverpool are looking for a manager who can get more out of the players they already have, they should pay close attention.