Isak Shines as Liverpool Secures Victory Against Ipswich

Three minutes. That was all it took for Alexander Isak to jolt a drifting Liverpool start to life and, perhaps, to finally justify a price tag that has hung around his neck for a year.

Under the Portman Road floodlights, with the noise from the away end rolling in from the far corner, Liverpool’s £125m striker stepped off the shoulder of a rattled Ipswich back line and ripped through them twice before the home crowd had settled. Two goals in three first-half minutes. His first brace for the club. Premier League goals five and six in Liverpool colours, a return that has felt thin for a signing of such scale.

On Friday night, it suddenly looked different.

Isak explodes, Iraola breathes

Isak’s first arrived on six minutes, a move that summed up what Andoni Iraola has been demanding. Cody Gakpo received the ball, looked straight up, and threaded a perfectly weighted pass into his strike partner. Isak darted in behind and drove his finish inside the near post. Kjell Scherpen should have done better; the Dutch goalkeeper let the shot squeeze past him, and Portman Road sagged.

The second came almost before Ipswich could process the first. Again Gakpo, again vertical, again devastating. This time it was a gorgeous outside-of-the-boot ball that sliced open the defence. Isak, buoyed by that early breakthrough, chopped one way, then the other, before slotting past the exposed Daniel Iversen with his left foot. Iraola wheeled away on the touchline as the away support launched into “Isak again ole ole.”

For a manager who had watched his team fall behind in both of their opening league fixtures, this was oxygen. “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. On this evidence, Liverpool finally saw the striker they thought they were buying from Newcastle.

Echoes of Slot – but a different story

Liverpool know this ground as a launchpad. Two years ago, Arne Slot took his first win as Liverpool manager here, also a 2-0 success on day one of a season that ended with only the club’s second league title in 35 years. That campaign opened with 11 wins from 13. Nobody at Liverpool is pretending this is that. Not after the muddled opening fortnight under Iraola.

But he needed a clean, authoritative performance. He got one.

Ipswich arrived with an 18-game unbeaten home league run and a sense that Portman Road could again become a problem venue for visiting heavyweights. They left with that streak snapped, their defending in tatters and their manager Gary O’Neil staring at a night that will be quickly filed under “write-off.”

Ipswich had looked bright at Old Trafford for 40 minutes last weekend and beat Sunderland on the opening day. Here, they were chaotic at the back and blunt in attack. Whenever they did escape Iraola’s suffocating press, there were gaps to run into and chances to create, but the final ball deserted them. Abdul Fatawu repeatedly burned Milos Kerkez on the right yet wasted his openings. Julio Enciso’s cross looked destined to be tapped in before Ronald Araujo stretched to clear.

Those moments never felt like a turning point. More like brief interruptions to Liverpool’s control.

Gakpo at the heart of everything

For all the focus on Isak and the anticipation around Bradley Barcola’s debut, the beating heart of Liverpool’s attacking play was once again Cody Gakpo.

A goal on the opening weekend against Newcastle. An assist against Nottingham Forest. Now, two more assists here and a performance that screamed authority in the most overcrowded area of Iraola’s squad. One slide-rule pass, one audacious trivela, both slicing Ipswich apart and both finished by Isak.

Gakpo’s evening didn’t end there. Iraola shifted him into the No 9 role for the final half-hour, another nod to the Dutchman’s growing importance. This, remember, a week after an £80m move to Manchester City seemed to be edging towards reality.

“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 think there is no doubt. I rate him very highly.”

The manager’s admiration goes beyond goals and assists. He highlighted the way Gakpo repeatedly rejected the safe sideways ball and instead punched passes between defenders the instant Liverpool won possession. “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.”

Florian Wirtz, operating just behind the forwards, will have heard that message loud and clear.

Iraola’s selection calls pay off

Iraola’s starting XI carried a couple of sharp edges. Araujo, on loan from Barcelona, came in at right back ahead of the much-maligned Jeremie Frimpong. Barcola, the marquee summer signing and joint-most expensive purchase in English football history, had to settle for a place on the bench after missing PSG’s pre-season due to France’s World Cup run.

In midfield, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wirtz surged into the space in front of Ipswich’s defence with regularity. Both had multiple sights of goal and both will feel they should have scored. Szoboszlai saw a series of efforts beaten away by Iversen; Wirtz’s sharp movement and crossing created chances that went begging, including the delivery from which Isak strayed lazily offside to deny himself a hat-trick.

Behind them, Alexis MacAllister dictated the tempo and should have killed the contest early in the second half, only to plant a free header straight at Iversen. Later, Szoboszlai briefly thought he had earned a penalty when Leif Davis grabbed his shirt, but VAR intervened and an offside in the build-up wiped it out.

None of that altered the direction of the game. Liverpool were in command. The only lingering criticism was that the scoreline did not fully reflect the gulf.

Barcola arrives, selection headache looms

When the fourth official’s board went up in the 63rd minute, it sparked a ripple of confusion. Isak’s number. No hat-trick, no match ball. The away end groaned for a second.

Then they saw who was coming on.

Barcola stepped across the white line to a roar from the travelling support, a debut 12 months in the making after his high-profile move and disrupted summer. The early signs were everything Liverpool had imagined: sharp turns in tight spaces, explosive acceleration in behind, the kind of direct running that will give right backs nightmares from now until May.

His arrival only deepens Iraola’s biggest short-term dilemma. How does he fit everyone in?

Gakpo has been electric from the left. Barcola was signed to play there. Victor Munoz impressed again on the right. Rio Ngumoha waits in the wings. Wirtz demands a central role. Isak, on this evidence, must be the starting No 9. It is a luxurious problem, but a problem all the same.

Iraola’s answer will go a long way to defining Liverpool’s season.

A line in the sand?

Liverpool had only once gone seven Premier League games without a win, 24 years ago. That spectre lurked in the background as they arrived in Suffolk on the back of a disjointed start. It did not linger for long.

They left with a comfortable victory, a clean sheet, their record signing back among the goals and their new superstar winger finally on the pitch. For a manager trying to impose a high-risk, high-press system on a squad still adjusting to life after Slot, this felt like more than just three points.

The club’s hierarchy have spent heavily on firepower: Isak, Barcola, Wirtz. Iraola’s future may hinge on whether he can make that investment sing in harmony. If this night in East Anglia is the moment the pieces began to click, the rest of the league will have taken note.