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At the final whistle, victory secured, Andoni Iraola embraced both his current players and those he guided to new heights at Bournemouth last season. Liverpool are not yet the overwhelming, suffocating force Iraola wants them to become but they did enough to claim three points here, Alexander Isak capping a peculiar performance with a simple finish.
Cody Gakpo was again the architect, the Dutchman the supplier for all four of Isak’s goals this season. Isak’s only other shot before scoring was to balloon a first-time effort high and wide but his second-half strike was sufficient to return Liverpool to winning ways in the Premier League.
Perhaps it was inevitable that these teams would neutralise each other. On Iraola’s final day at Bournemouth’s training base he spent an hour in the company of his successor, Marco Rose, who is yet to taste victory in the Premier League. The pair stopped talking only because Tiago Pinto, Bournemouth’s sporting director, interrupted to remind them there were other things on the agenda.
“We knew what we were going to get, they knew what they were going to get and maybe you could see it,” Rose said. “It is mostly the same after our games; I sit here after a good performance, but you don’t get points for good performances. You have to force wins.”
Amine Adli, sidelined because of a calf injury, scored a 95th-minute winner in a 3-2 victory for Bournemouth in this fixture last season but there was no such chaos to this game. The only clear sight of goal arrived approaching the hour when Gakpo bypassed Adrien Truffert down the right flank and squared, the ball trickling towards Isak on the edge of the six-yard box.
A few minutes earlier Isak had sent Iraola retreating to the away dugout. “Yes, yes,” Iraola said, encouraging Isak as the Sweden striker made tracks on the wing, white shirts attacking the box, only for his wayward cross to end up with the ball flying towards the scaffolding structure in a corner of this ground, part of Bournemouth’s ongoing stadium upgrade.
In midweek, Iraola was rooting for his former club on their European bow but promised a businesslike return to Bournemouth and stepped off one of the two Liverpool team coaches with a game face. Tommy Elphick, who captained Bournemouth to the Premier League in 2015 and followed Iraola to Liverpool, embraced old colleagues pitchside before the warm-up.
“I love it because I love this club and it is growing,” Iraola said after Liverpool extended their unbeaten start to seven games in all competitions. “They will enjoy European nights here. This stadium will become a lot nicer. I was delighted to see a lot of the people I appreciate so much.”
All the niceties, Iraola said, could wait until afterwards. Pablo de la Torre, his fitness coach who was part of his Bournemouth staff, made that clear within the opening 30 seconds, wresting the ball away from Adam Smith to delay the hosts taking a quick throw‑in. Bournemouth were intent on building on their history‑making win on Thursday in the Basque Country and had the best chance of the first half, Alisson’s smart right-hand save preventing Evanilson’s front-post flick squeezing in at his near post.
Dominik Szoboszlai dropped a typically vicious free-kick wide of Djordje Petrovic’s post and Petrovic saved a deflected Bradley Barcola shot, but Liverpool spent much of the first half containing Bournemouth’s threats. Iraola conceded that his side were slow out of the blocks.
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“We didn’t start with the intensity that is required to win here,” he said. “You never play comfortably here – Bournemouth put you under pressure and you have to adapt.”
Liverpool only teased glimpses of quality. Florian Wirtz saw a disguised pass for Isak cut out and Bournemouth flew forward, the alert and again impressive Jérémy Jacquet extinguishing the danger as Ryan Christie flung his body to connect with a low cross. Christie chopped inside Szoboszlai close to the touchline and Scott switched play with a pinged diagonal pass.
Bournemouth seemed to be growing in confidence but then Gakpo breezed past Truffert, usually such a dependable performer who last week was given a France recall. Gakpo crossed from the right and while James Hill dived in to stop the threat of Wirtz at the front post, the ball dropped to an unmarked Isak on the edge of the six‑yard box to stroke the ball in.
It was not a nerveless finale. Iraola hopped on the touchline as Scott, poised to make his England debut in this international window, lined up a 90th-minute free‑kick. After Liverpool won a free-kick deep into four minutes of stoppage time, Iraola crossed his hands and frantically pointed his players towards the scoreboard showing there were only a matter of seconds remaining. Moments later, it was a case of job done. “I think in life you always get what you deserve,” a phlegmatic Rose said. “One error is too much, that’s the point.”
