Iraola seals £34m Victor Munoz signing with personal call, echoing Klopp's first Liverpool transfer

Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola secured the club’s first signing of his tenure last week when 22-year-old Spanish winger Victor Munoz agreed a six-year contract at Anfield, with the club activating the £34.5 million release clause in his Osasuna deal. Munoz is set to join his new teammates on Merseyside in July, subject to work permit approval.

Newcastle United had been considered frontrunners for the highly-rated attacker, who contributed seven goals and five assists in 36 appearances last season. The Magpies had identified Munoz as a potential successor to Barcelona-bound Anthony Gordon and held encouraging talks with the player’s representatives, but crucially attempted to negotiate a fee below the release clause — an approach Liverpool declined to mirror, paying the full amount instead.

According to The Athletic, Iraola moved quickly after taking over from Arne Slot to flag Munoz as a priority target to Liverpool’s hierarchy, arguing the Spaniard’s profile was ideally suited to his high-tempo, pressing-based style. The two men subsequently held a detailed phone call in which Iraola explained precisely how he planned to use the winger. That conversation is understood to have been the decisive factor in Munoz choosing Liverpool over competing interest from Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester United.

The approach carries a clear echo of Jurgen Klopp’s arrival at the club in October 2015. Midfielder Marko Grujic became the German’s first signing when he joined from Red Star Belgrade for £5.1 million in January 2016, despite interest from Chelsea, Inter Milan, AC Milan and Juventus. Klopp’s unexpected personal call proved the difference.

“His vision is that I should be something between a No.6 and a No.10, what they call a box-to-box midfielder,” Grujic said at the time. “My only request was that I didn’t want to be loaned out, I just want to play for Liverpool.”

Sporting director Richard Hughes moved decisively to finalise the Munoz agreement, but it is Iraola’s direct personal involvement that mirrors the blueprint Klopp used to build trust with his earliest recruits — a signal of how the new manager intends to operate in the transfer market.