Alexander Isak Shines in Liverpool's First Premier League Win
Alexander Isak walked into Suffolk as the £125m striker Liverpool had been waiting for and left having tormented Ipswich Town, while Cody Gakpo produced the kind of performance that made Liverpool quietly grateful Manchester City never got their man.
By the time the clock ticked into double figures, the contest was effectively done. Two goals from Isak inside nine ruthless minutes set up a 2-0 win, Liverpool’s first Premier League victory of the season and Andoni Iraola’s first since replacing the sacked Arne Slot. The scoreline felt routine. The implications did not.
Isak finally looks like £125m
Context matters. Ipswich are brave, newly promoted and open. They conceded five at Manchester United last week and again looked vulnerable when faced with genuine top-end attacking quality. Liverpool exposed that soft underbelly without mercy.
Yet the real story was not the opposition. It was the version of Isak that finally emerged in a Liverpool shirt.
This was the forward Liverpool prised from Newcastle United in a transfer that broke, at the time, the British record and left a trail of acrimony on Tyneside. The same forward who, for a year, looked nothing like a centrepiece signing and everything like an expensive miscalculation.
Last season he arrived out of shape after forcing his way out of Newcastle, then limped through the campaign, literally and figuratively. Injuries bit, rhythm deserted him, and his body language screamed frustration. In a team collapsing under the weight of a shambolic title defence, Isak became the symbol of excess – the most costly vanity project in British football.
His numbers told the story. Across all competitions he played 22 games, 1,033 minutes, and scored just four times – one goal every 258 minutes. In the Premier League it was 14 games, 703 minutes, three goals, one every 234 minutes. While Liverpool unravelled and Slot’s reign disintegrated barely a year after he lifted the Premier League trophy, Isak was eclipsed by fellow striker Hugo Ekitike and a chorus of doubts.
This looked like a different player.
Here, his movement had purpose. His runs were sharp, timed to perfection, constantly darting in behind defenders. He pressed with aggression, hunted the ball, and finished with the cold assurance Liverpool thought they were buying from Newcastle. He has already matched last season’s league tally, but the raw statistics almost feel secondary to the change in demeanour. The shoulders were no longer slumped. The touch was cleaner, the decisions quicker. The Isak code, long scrambled, suddenly appeared to make sense.
Iraola helped unlock it by returning him to what he does best: attacking space, not wrestling centre-backs with his back to goal. This was the Isak who lit up St James’ Park, the one who made defenders panic when the ball was clipped over the top. For Liverpool, that version had been missing, inexplicably, for a year.
Gakpo the unlikely pillar
Isak did not do it alone. He worked in tandem with Gakpo, whose own summer could easily have ended with him pulling on Manchester City blue.
Had that move not collapsed, Gakpo would have been in the north west preparing for City’s meeting with Coventry City at Etihad Stadium instead of stitching Liverpool’s attacks together at Portman Road. Here, he was everywhere: dropping deep to link play, sliding passes into channels, dragging defenders away to carve open the space Isak devoured.
It was a virtuoso display, not in the highlight-reel sense of spectacular goals, but in the control and intelligence that allowed Liverpool to dominate without fuss. Every time Ipswich thought they had a foothold, Gakpo found another angle, another lane to exploit.
Barcola’s blistering glimpse
The night also offered a first look at Bradley Barcola, Liverpool’s £123m signing from Paris St-Germain. He only had 26 minutes, but that was enough to flash the sort of pace that bends defensive lines out of shape. One sprint, one burst into open grass, and you could almost hear the collective intake of breath from the away end.
Yet even that expensive, electrifying cameo sat in the shadow of Isak’s resurgence. This was his night.
Liverpool will know the caveats. Beating a newly promoted side still adjusting to the level is one thing; sustaining this level of ruthlessness against hardened Premier League defences is another. But for Iraola, this trip to Suffolk ticked every box: first win, first clean sheet, record signings looking like weapons rather than burdens, and a misfiring striker suddenly resembling the predator they paid for.
If this is the real Alexander Isak, and if Gakpo continues to play like a man who dodged the wrong move at the right time, Liverpool’s season may be about to veer in a very different direction from the chaos of last year.
