Image: from Ipswich Town X @IpswichTown
By Open Chronicle Sports
Alexander Isak scored twice inside the opening nine minutes as Liverpool claimed their first Premier League victory under Andoni Iraola with a composed 2–0 win over Ipswich Town at Portman Road.
There are evenings when a football match needs time to reveal itself. This was not one of them.
Liverpool arrived in Suffolk still searching for their first league victory of the new campaign, having opened the season with successive 2–2 draws. Nine minutes after kick-off, the contest had already taken on an entirely different complexion.
Alexander Isak saw to that.
The Swedish striker struck twice in three minutes, Cody Gakpo supplying both assists, and Liverpool spent much of what remained of the evening doing what accomplished away sides have done in English football for generations: controlling the match, quietening the ground and taking the points home.
Isak silences Portman Road
Ipswich had barely settled when Liverpool found the breakthrough.
Six minutes were on the clock when Gakpo released Isak, whose powerful finish at the near post gave goalkeeper Kjell Scherpen little chance to recover.
Three minutes later came another.
Gakpo was again the architect, this time producing a clever outside-of-the-boot pass. Isak did the rest, showing the composure expected of a striker carrying both an enormous transfer fee and enormous expectations.
Ipswich Town 0–2 Liverpool. Nine minutes played.
For the home crowd, it was a brutal introduction to the evening. For Liverpool, it was precisely the start Iraola would have wanted after watching his side concede too easily during their opening two league matches.
Isak nearly completed a first-half hat-trick when he converted a fine Florian Wirtz pass, only for the goal to be ruled out for offside.
Dominik Szoboszlai also tested the Ipswich defence from distance as Liverpool’s midfield took control.
But there would be no third.
Liverpool did not need one.
Gakpo makes his point
Isak will inevitably dominate the headlines, but this was also a significant evening for Cody Gakpo.
Both goals came from the Dutchman’s work, and his combination with Isak provided Liverpool with the cutting edge that had occasionally been missing during the opening weeks of the campaign.
There was a simplicity to it.
Gakpo created. Isak finished.
In a Liverpool side reshaped by another ambitious summer in the transfer market, that developing understanding could prove considerably more important than one September victory at Portman Road.
Ipswich refuse to disappear
To Ipswich’s credit, the match did not become the rout those opening minutes threatened.
Gary O’Neil’s side regrouped and produced a more assertive second half. Liverpool were forced to defend for longer periods as the hosts searched for the goal that might have brought Portman Road back into the contest.
Leif Davis had one of Ipswich’s better opportunities, while the home side enjoyed their strongest spell during the closing stages.
There was effort, territory and encouragement for the newly promoted club.
There was no goal.
Liverpool’s defence, with Ronald Araujo making his first Premier League start, held firm. Iraola eventually adjusted his shape as Ipswich pushed forward, and Alisson’s clean sheet survived.
That may have pleased the Liverpool manager almost as much as the two goals at the other end.
After conceding twice against Newcastle and twice against Nottingham Forest, Liverpool finally left a Premier League ground without having been breached.
Barcola gets his first taste of English football
There was another moment of considerable interest shortly after the hour.
Bradley Barcola entered the match for his Liverpool debut following his blockbuster move from Paris Saint-Germain.
The French forward immediately offered glimpses of the acceleration and direct running that persuaded Liverpool to make another enormous investment in their attack.
He nearly created a goal too, driving forward before sending a dangerous ball across the area for Gakpo.
It was only a cameo.
But Liverpool supporters were given their first look at yet another component of an attacking department that now contains an extraordinary range of options.
Iraola finally has his win
Perhaps the most important number of the evening was not two.
It was three.
Liverpool had needed three league matches to deliver Iraola’s first Premier League victory since succeeding Arne Slot.
Two draws had not constituted a crisis, but at a club where championship ambitions are assumed rather than merely discussed, another failure to win would inevitably have brought questions.
Instead, Liverpool leave Suffolk with five points from their opening three matches and something more valuable than the mathematics alone suggest: evidence that Iraola’s ideas are beginning to settle.
The football was not relentless for 90 minutes. Liverpool’s intensity faded during portions of the second half and Ipswich were allowed enough encouragement to remind the visitors that sterner examinations will follow.
But good Premier League sides do not always require spectacle.
Sometimes two early goals, a clean sheet and a professional journey home are quite enough.
The Isak Liverpool have been waiting for
And then there is Isak.
Liverpool knew exactly what they were buying when they invested so heavily in the former Newcastle United striker: movement, elegance, intelligence and, above all, goals.
At Portman Road, those qualities appeared within nine minutes.
The first finish carried power. The second required composure.
Together they decided the match.
After scoring against Nottingham Forest in the previous round, Isak now has three league goals in the new campaign. More significantly, his partnership with Gakpo is beginning to look natural.
For Ipswich, the lesson was a familiar Premier League one.
Mistakes against elite opposition are rarely allowed to remain merely mistakes. They become goals.
For Liverpool, this was not a declaration that every early-season problem has disappeared.
It was something rather more useful.
A proper away win.
Two goals from the centre-forward. A clean sheet at the other end. Three points secured before the weekend had properly begun.
And, at last, the Iraola era has its first Premier League victory.
Match at a glance
Ipswich Town 0–2 Liverpool
Premier League, Matchweek 3
Portman Road, 4 September 2026
Goals:
Alexander Isak 6′
Alexander Isak 9′
Assists: Cody Gakpo ×2
Half-time: Ipswich Town 0–2 Liverpool
Full-time: Ipswich Town 0–2 Liverpool
Open Chronicle Man of the Match: Alexander Isak