Alexander Isak announces himself at Liverpool as Gakpo’s craft unlocks Ipswich

By the time nine minutes had passed on a mild Suffolk evening, Liverpool’s search for a first Premier League win of the season was over. Alexander Isak had scored twice and Andoni Iraola had the opening victory of his Anfield tenure.

Context matters: Ipswich are newly promoted and still smarting from the five they conceded at Manchester United last week. Even so, this was no accident. Iraola’s side were sharp from the first whistle, and Bradley Barcola — the £123m deadline-day signing from Paris St-Germain — offered a 26-minute debut of frightening pace. The headline, though, belonged to the £125m man the club had begun to doubt.

Isak swapped Newcastle for Merseyside last summer in a deal that broke the British transfer record and left scars on both clubs. Little since then went the way either side hoped. He reported for duty short of full fitness, spent long stretches injured, and finished his first campaign with four goals in 22 appearances — just three in 14 league games — while Hugo Ekitike led the line more convincingly. As Liverpool’s title defence unravelled and Arne Slot lost his job, he became a byword for money without return.

Two goals that settled it inside nine minutes

The first arrived in the sixth minute. Cody Gakpo slid the ball between Leif Davis and Jacob Greaves, Isak attacked the channel, and his right-foot finish was too hot for Kjell Scherpen, the Ipswich keeper badly at fault for spilling it over the line. Three minutes later came the one Iraola will replay for his players. Gakpo, from inside his own half, clipped a pass round the corner with the outside of his right boot; Isak flicked the ball past Greaves with his left, checked as Scherpen advanced, moved it again and rolled it home with the same boot.

From Gakpo’s first touch to Isak’s last, it was virtually a training exercise. Game over before the quarter-hour.

The Isak code, finally cracked

This is the striker who trudged through a poor return to St James’ Park on the opening weekend and faced questions even after scoring against Nottingham Forest last time out. Here he ran in behind, stretched the back line and pressed with the urgency that made him a phenomenon in the north east — the profile Liverpool convinced themselves they were buying.

Iraola would not be drawn into declaring a new dawn. He told reporters his demands of the striker go beyond goals, pointing to what Isak gives the team elsewhere, and sounded content that his forward had banked two full games and a first double of the season. Isak himself admitted the win had been a long time coming, insisted a proper pre-season had made all the difference, and said the rough 12 months — a long injury among them — were behind him after a good summer spent with Sweden.

Portman Road, tellingly, is becoming his ground. Across the past two campaigns he now has five league goals there — as many as Erling Haaland has managed away at Crystal Palace in the same period, the joint best of any visiting player.

Gakpo, whose own form stumbled a year ago, was the other winner of the night. A move to Manchester City awaited had it gone through, but when Liverpool failed to land either Yankuba Minteh or Ismaila Sarr he stayed put — and on this evidence that may prove the best business the club did all summer. Virgil van Dijk, captain and international colleague, had insisted even before the window closed that the Dutchman remained vital to the cause; the forward proved the point twice over here.

The pressing question is whether it sticks. Iraola will not want this to prove a false dawn for a talent that lost its way so completely, and nights like this only raise the bar for what follows. For one evening, though, everything Liverpool paid for — and everything they nearly lost — made perfect sense.

This piece draws on the match report and analysis of the BBC’s chief football writer Phil McNulty, published at BBC Sport.