Alexander Isak Shines in Liverpool's First League Win
Three minutes. That was all it took for Alexander Isak to turn a stuttering Liverpool start to the season into a statement night in Suffolk – and to remind everyone why the club paid £125m to prise him from Newcastle.
Under the lights at Portman Road, with all eyes supposedly on Bradley Barcola’s long-awaited Premier League bow, it was Liverpool’s No 9 who ripped through Ipswich and handed Andoni Iraola his first league win in the Anfield dugout. Two goals in three first-half minutes, his first brace for the club, his fifth and sixth league strikes since that record-equalling move. At last, something concrete to cling to.
“With Alex, if he is fit, if he is available, if he is in good shape, I think he will produce the numbers,” Iraola said afterwards. This was the kind of night that backs a manager’s conviction.
Gakpo pulls the strings
Isak will take the headlines. He earned them. But Cody Gakpo shaped the game.
Liverpool’s Dutch forward has started the season like a man who has no intention of being squeezed out of the most crowded area of Iraola’s squad. A goal on the opening weekend against Newcastle, an assist at Nottingham Forest, and here, two passes that sliced Ipswich open and effectively killed the contest before half-time.
The first, six minutes in, was a sharp, threaded ball into Isak, who peeled off his marker and drilled low at the near post. Kjell Scherpen should have done better; the Ipswich goalkeeper let the shot squirm beyond him. It set the tone.
Moments later, Gakpo went one better. This time he shaped his body, wrapped his right foot around the ball and sent a glorious outside-of-the-boot pass in behind the home defence. Isak, suddenly alive with confidence, chopped one way, then the other, before sliding a left-footed finish past the exposed Iversen. Iraola sprinted down the touchline in delight. In the away end, it was “Isak again ole ole”.
The only surprise was that Liverpool didn’t have the game buried by the interval. Dominik Szoboszlai peppered the Ipswich goal, Iversen stood up well, and Isak should have had a hat-trick but strayed needlessly offside when meeting a Florian Wirtz cross. For all the visitors’ control, the door stayed fractionally ajar.
All this from Gakpo, a player who, a week ago, seemed on the brink of an £80m move to Manchester City. “I had no doubt with Cody,” Iraola insisted. “He has been very good all the pre-season, has started the season very well, producing numbers. I think Cody knows how much we value him… I rate him very highly.”
The Basque coach went further, picking out the speed of Gakpo’s decisions, his refusal to play safe. That is the new gospel at Liverpool. “We want to risk,” Iraola said. “When we recover the ball, look forward. It’s the moment you can find some spaces between the defenders and we can give the No 9 chances. If we play ‘safety passes’, the chance won’t be there.” Wirtz has been warned.
Iraola’s selection calls pay off
This felt like a reset after two chaotic league outings in which Liverpool had conceded first. Here, they never gave Ipswich a sniff in the opening stages.
Iraola made bold calls. Ronald Araujo, on loan from Barcelona, started at right back ahead of the much-maligned Jeremie Frimpong. Barcola, the marquee summer signing, began on the bench after missing PSG’s entire pre-season due to France’s World Cup run. The double pivot of Szoboszlai and Wirtz drove relentlessly from midfield, pouring into the vast pockets of space Ipswich left in front of their back four.
Both midfielders had clear sights of goal. Both should have scored. Both left Portman Road frustrated that they did not.
On the flanks, Victor Munoz again impressed on the right, while Gakpo, nominally off the left, roamed and probed and later finished the game as a No 9. Somewhere in all of this, Iraola must find room for Barcola and for Rio Ngumoha. It is a selection headache, but the kind managers relish.
Can he really move Gakpo from the left, where he has been so devastating? The answer, inevitably, will be yes. Barcola has been bought to own that channel. How Iraola balances that attacking puzzle could define Liverpool’s season.
Ipswich’s streak snapped
For Ipswich, this was a jolt. Gary O’Neil’s side arrived on the back of an 18-game unbeaten home league run, with a win over Sunderland and a spirited 40-minute showing at Old Trafford in their pocket. They left with their defence shredded and their limitations exposed.
Liverpool’s panache only highlighted Ipswich’s chaos. The hosts were ragged at the back, wide open in midfield and wasteful when chances did come. When they did manage to bypass Iraola’s trademark high press, there were glimpses of threat: Abdul Fatawu repeatedly beat Milos Kerkez down the right but could not find the finish; Araujo produced a vital intervention to cut out what looked a certain tap-in from Julio Enciso’s cross.
Those moments never felt like a turning point, though. They felt like interruptions.
The second half simply underlined the gulf. Alexis MacAllister should have killed the game with a free header straight at Iversen. Szoboszlai thought he had a penalty for a shirt pull by Leif Davis, only for VAR to rule him offside in the build-up. Liverpool kept pushing, Ipswich kept hanging on.
Barcola’s first glimpse
The only real murmur of dissent from the travelling support came when Iraola decided to withdraw Isak on 63 minutes, denying him the chance of a first Liverpool hat-trick. Any disappointment evaporated instantly.
On came Barcola.
The reception from the away end crackled with anticipation. This was the first real look at the joint-most expensive signing in English football history in a Liverpool shirt, 12 months after the deal and after a summer of waiting.
The cameo was brief, but it was enough to whet appetites: sharp turns in tight spaces, feet like a hummingbird, and one burst in behind that showed exactly why Liverpool paid what they did. He will torment right backs up and down the league once the minutes build.
A line in the sand?
Liverpool have only once gone seven Premier League games without a win, 24 years ago. That unwanted piece of history never looked likely to be revisited here.
This was a clean, controlled, quietly ruthless away victory. A clean sheet. A centre-forward back in the goals. A manager’s principles starting to show through the noise of a turbulent start. Portman Road has been the launchpad for a Liverpool era before – Arne Slot’s first win, a 2-0 on day one two years ago, ended up being the opening chapter of a title-winning season.
Nobody inside the away dressing room will be talking about titles now. Slot’s side opened that campaign with 11 wins from 13; Iraola is still patching together his first month.
But nights like this matter. The Spaniard’s reign may ultimately be judged on whether Liverpool’s big-money trio – Isak, Barcola, Wirtz – ignite together. If they do, we may look back on a routine away win in East Anglia as something far more significant: the moment the pieces finally clicked.
