Isak's Double Secures First Liverpool Win Against Ipswich
Andoni Iraola did not have to wait 10 games this time. Nine minutes was enough.
Two early strikes from Alexander Isak gave Liverpool’s new head coach his first victory in charge, a 2-0 win at Ipswich that owed as much to ruthless finishing as it did to another nightmare in the Tractor Boys’ goal.
Lightning start ends talk of slow-burn Iraola
Memories of Iraola’s stuttering start at Bournemouth – no win in his first 10 Premier League matches in 2023 – had started to creep back after two draws to open his Liverpool reign. Portman Road has a habit of turning uneasy stories into crises.
Instead, Liverpool ripped that narrative up before Ipswich had even settled.
On six minutes, Cody Gakpo slipped a perfectly weighted pass into Isak’s stride. The Swede took one touch, drove his shot straight at Kjell Scherpen – and watched it burst through the goalkeeper’s palms and into the net. A decent hit, but one that should never have beaten a Premier League keeper.
Ipswich barely had time to breathe before the damage doubled. Three minutes later, a hopeful long ball turned into calamity. Scherpen charged from his area, misjudged the flight and the angles, and Isak ghosted in down the left to slide a low finish past him. Same scorer, same provider: Gakpo again threading the pass, Isak again punishing flimsy resistance.
Two goals, nine minutes, Portman Road stunned.
Ipswich rally, Liverpool control
Shell-shocked, Ipswich needed something to cling to. They found it in their response.
Gary O’Neil’s side refused to fold. Leif Davis rose to meet a cross from the right on the half-hour and should have halved the deficit, only to glance his header wide with Liverpool’s back line briefly exposed. The home crowd, packed in and loud, sensed a route back.
They thought they were in deeper trouble moments later when Isak swept in what he believed was a first-half hat-trick from a fine Florian Wirtz cross. The flag went up; he had gone a fraction early. Relief for Ipswich, a warning for Liverpool that the game still had a pulse.
After the break, the contest became more bitty, more about control than chaos. Liverpool tightened their structure and pressed with far more cohesion than in Iraola’s opening games. Ipswich pushed, but clear chances never really came.
The home fans did find a fresh target: referee Darren England. Jérémy Jacquet, already booked for a foul on Emersonn, flew in from behind again on 53 minutes. Ipswich expected a whistle, maybe a second yellow. England gave neither. The anger inside Portman Road was instant and sustained.
VAR drama and a £123m debut
The technology then turned its gaze the other way. With 20 minutes left, VAR spotted a foul by Davis on Dominik Szoboszlai and sent England to the monitor, seemingly to confirm a Liverpool penalty. Stockley Park, though, had already seen the bigger picture: Szoboszlai was offside in the build-up. No spot-kick, no chance to pad the scoreline.
By then, Iraola had already dipped into his new toy box. On 66 minutes, Bradley Barcola – the £123m signing from PSG – stepped off the bench for his Premier League debut. His introduction coincided with Liverpool easing off the throttle, shifting from the explosive early blitz to something more measured, almost cold-blooded.
From there, the visitors shut the game down. No late drama, no real jeopardy. Just a professional, organised performance and, crucially for Iraola, a first clean sheet of his tenure.
“It’s nice, we needed this one,” Iraola told Sky Sports. He praised the control, the strong start, and highlighted Liverpool’s improved pressing: recover the ball high, find Isak early, and the rest follows.
Isak leaves last season behind
For Isak, this felt like a line in the sand.
“We were waiting for the first win,” he said, “and we were talking about starting the game good which we haven’t done recently. And we did that with two goals.”
Last season’s long injury lay-off and stop-start form clearly still sit with him, but not on him. “That season is kind of behind me,” he admitted. A normal pre-season, a sharper Liverpool press, and a head coach who wants him not just as a finisher but as a complete No 9 – the pieces are aligning.
Iraola called him “a massive player” and made it clear his battles with the striker will be about the dirty work, the pressing and link play, not the numbers. The goals, he believes, will take care of themselves.
On this evidence, he has a point.
O’Neil fumes at timewasting as Portman Road stays with Ipswich
O’Neil left with back-to-back defeats but not a broken dressing room. Ipswich, after their horror start, competed. They pressed, they harried, they forced Liverpool to manage the game rather than enjoy it.
What grated most for the Ipswich boss was how Liverpool were allowed to do that.
“We’ve been pushed on timewasting a lot,” he said. “My goalkeeper is being hurried up at Old Trafford when we weren’t even set and they were able to kill the game a lot easier here. That upset me a bit. They could have been hurried up.”
He did, though, accept that VAR reached the right conclusion on the would-be Liverpool penalty. Small consolations on a night where the margin of defeat felt self-inflicted.
The Ipswich supporters saw enough fight to applaud their team off. The performance gave them something to cling to. The goalkeeping, again, did not.
The Ipswich No 1 curse strikes again
You could forgive Ipswich fans for thinking their goalkeepers are haunted.
Last time they climbed into the top flight, Arijanet Muric arrived from Burnley to be the answer. Instead, his season became a reel of costly mistakes at the worst possible times.
This summer, Ipswich turned to Scherpen from Union Saint-Gilloise, hoping a new face would bring calm. On this evidence, the script has not changed.
He was at fault for both of Liverpool’s goals – the soft wrists for the first, the wild charge for the second – and in a league where margins are brutal, that is enough to kill a game. Ipswich spent long spells carrying out O’Neil’s plan, frustrating superior opponents, only to watch two moments of indecision undo it all.
They now need Scherpen to settle quickly. They cannot afford to fight both the opposition and their own No 1 every week.
Liverpool, by contrast, leave with exactly what Iraola needed: a first win, a first clean sheet, and a centre-forward who looks determined to turn last season’s frustration into something far more dangerous.
