Alexander Isak Shines with Two Goals in Liverpool's Win
Alexander Isak walked into Portman Road on Friday night as a £125m question. He walked out looking every inch the answer Liverpool thought they were buying.
Two ruthless finishes in the first nine minutes, a 2-0 win wrapped up before Ipswich Town had even settled, and a first Premier League victory of the season in the bag for Andoni Iraola. On paper, routine. On the pitch, something more important: the night Liverpool’s record signing finally started to look like Liverpool’s record signing.
Yes, this was against a newly promoted Ipswich side who conceded five at Manchester United a week earlier and are still adjusting to the division’s speed and cruelty. They were brave, they were willing – but once Liverpool’s front line began to run at them, they looked horribly exposed. When you spend this much money on firepower, these are the games you are supposed to dominate. Liverpool did.
Isak, at last
For most of last season, Isak looked like an expensive misunderstanding. He arrived out of shape after forcing his way out of Newcastle United, then lurched from injury to injury. His body language screamed frustration, his numbers backed it up.
Four goals in 22 games in all competitions. Just three in 14 league appearances, one every 234 minutes. While Liverpool’s title defence crumbled and Arne Slot’s reign unravelled, Isak became the symbol of a club that had lost its edge: a £125m striker wandering through matches, overshadowed by Hugo Ekitike and swallowed by the team’s wider malaise.
This felt like another player entirely.
From the first whistle he ran in behind, snapped into presses, played on the shoulder like the forward who had terrorised defences at Newcastle. Iraola used him exactly where he is most dangerous – facing space, not crowds – and Ipswich simply could not live with it.
The breakthrough came on six minutes. Cody Gakpo, drifting between the lines with the swagger of a man who knows he should be nowhere near Suffolk this weekend, slipped a clever pass between Leif Davis and Jacob Greaves. Isak burst through, thrashed a right-foot drive at goal and watched it overpower Kjell Scherpen, who helped it on its way with a weak touch. Liverpool led, and the doubts around their No 9 started to melt away.
Three minutes later, they evaporated.
Gakpo, deep in his own half, shaped his body and carved a stunning outside-of-the-boot pass into space. Isak read it instantly. One flick with his left to glide inside Greaves as Scherpen charged out, a touch with his right to send the keeper the wrong way, then a calm left-foot roll into the empty net. It was all ice and angles. From creator to finisher, the move was flawless.
Game over. Nine minutes gone.
Isak now has three league goals this season, already matching last year’s tally. The numbers matter, but his demeanour mattered more. The shoulders were back, the runs were aggressive, the confidence obvious. This was the forward Liverpool thought they were smashing a transfer record for.
Iraola knows what he has on his hands. “He’s a massive player for us,” the manager said afterwards. The goals, he insisted, will come if Isak stays fit and locked in. The battle now is about everything around them – the pressing, the link play, the work for the team. Two full games, key goals, a body that finally looks ready for the fight: it is a strong starting point.
Isak himself admitted last season had weighed heavily. A long injury lay-off, a team in crisis, a World Cup he had hoped would reset his career. It did not. This might.
“We were waiting for the first win,” he said. Liverpool had talked about starting fast, about not drifting through the opening stages as they had recently. Two early goals, control of the game, chances for more. “With a normal pre-season, I think we are starting to get to the way we want to play. To be offensive and attack the defence. I think we did that.”
Portman Road, at least, has become his favourite escape. Since the start of the 2024-25 season, his five Premier League goals there are the joint most by any player at a single away ground, matching Erling Haaland’s haul at Selhurst Park against Crystal Palace. Whatever else has gone wrong, Suffolk has been kind to him.
Gakpo’s twist of fate
If Isak supplied the headline, Gakpo wrote the script.
The Dutchman could easily have been at the Etihad this weekend, preparing for Manchester City’s meeting with Coventry City under Enzo Maresca. He was ready to go, ready to step into City’s attacking rebuild. The move collapsed when Liverpool failed to land Yankuba Minteh from Brighton or Ismaila Sarr from Crystal Palace. Gakpo stayed. Liverpool, on this evidence, should be grateful.
He did not just create both goals with touches of real class. He ran the game, knitting together Liverpool’s attacks, gliding into pockets of space, dragging Ipswich’s midfield and back line into uncomfortable positions. This was the elegant, decisive Gakpo who impressed when he first arrived in England, not the inconsistent version who drifted through much of last season.
Virgil van Dijk, his captain for club and country, has been clear about his importance. “He’s important for us, and he will be important this season,” Van Dijk said, pointing to performances like this and last week’s as evidence. Gakpo just needs to keep driving at this level. On nights like this, he looks irreplaceable.
The irony is obvious. Had Liverpool secured one of their wide targets, Gakpo would probably be wearing light blue. Instead he is feeding Isak with outside-of-the-boot passes and dictating a game Liverpool had to win. Football careers turn on such thin margins.
Barcola’s glimpse and Iraola’s ticked boxes
There was even time for a glimpse of Liverpool’s other huge attacking gamble. Bradley Barcola, signed for £123m from Paris St-Germain, came on for a 26-minute debut and immediately flashed the raw weapon Liverpool have paid for. He ran at defenders, stretched the pitch, and showed a burst of pace that will frighten better back lines than Ipswich’s.
On another night, his cameo would have dominated the discussion. Here, it sat firmly in Isak’s shadow. That in itself is a small victory for Liverpool’s recruitment department.
For Iraola, this was as close to a perfect evening as an early-season away game can get. First league win. First win as Liverpool manager. Star striker scoring twice. The other marquee forward staying put and thriving. The new winger showing why he cost a fortune. No late nerves, no drama.
The context matters. Ipswich have already been dismantled once this season. Bigger tests await, and Iraola will know better than to treat this as proof that every problem has been solved. Isak was poor on the opening day back at Newcastle, and even his goal against Nottingham Forest drew questions about his all-round display.
But this felt different. This was Isak used right – and playing right.
Liverpool’s season will not be defined by what happens at Portman Road in August. It may, though, be shaped by what was unlocked there. If this is the version of Isak that turns up week after week, if Gakpo keeps painting games with this kind of authority, and if Barcola grows into his fee, then Iraola’s Liverpool suddenly look far less like a project and far more like a threat.
The challenge is brutally simple now: was this just a clean night against vulnerable opposition, or the start of something that finally justifies all that money and all that faith?
