Andoni Iraola walked out at the Vitality Stadium on Sunday as an away manager for the first time, and he left it with all three points. Alexander Isak’s second half strike was enough to beat Bournemouth 1-0, a result that kept Liverpool unbeaten since Iraola took charge in the summer and left the club he spent three years rebuilding still searching for their first win of the season.
There was always going to be something in this one. Iraola spent three seasons turning Bournemouth from a side scrapping to stay in the Premier League into one that qualified for European football for the first time in their history, and Sunday marked his first trip back to the south coast since leaving for Liverpool in June. The reception from the home crowd before kickoff was warm enough. What followed on the pitch was not.
Isak’s remarkable turnaround
If there was one man who summed up how far both clubs have travelled since the summer, it was Isak. His winner arrived in the 57th minute, and it capped a personal story that has taken a dramatic turn for the better.
Isak joined Liverpool from Newcastle in a British record £125 million deal in September 2025, following a transfer saga in which he said promises made to him at St James’ Park had been broken. It was not a smooth beginning. Injuries disrupted his first season on Merseyside and he managed only three goals in fourteen Premier League appearances, a return that fell well short of the level Newcastle had built their attack around for years.
This season has told a completely different story. Sunday’s goal was his fourth in five league games, already one more than he managed in the whole of last season, and further evidence that he is finally settling into what Liverpool signed him to do. Asked previously whether he had any regrets about leaving Newcastle for a move that initially brought him little joy, Isak was blunt. “No, never,” he said. “I would never think like that. It is a massive club, and everything about the club made it pretty clear.”
Whatever frustrations came with his introduction to English football’s biggest stage, they look to be behind him now.
A foundation built on defending
Liverpool were far from their fluent best for large periods of this game, and Iraola admitted as much afterwards. Bournemouth started the brighter of the two sides and might have taken the lead when Evanilson met a near post delivery, only for Alisson to produce a smart save to keep the scores level.
It was after the break that Liverpool grew into the contest, with Cody Gakpo doing plenty of unheralded work at both ends of the pitch and Florian Wirtz gradually finding pockets of space after a quiet opening period, even if the final pass did not always come off. Isak’s goal settled matters, and Liverpool saw the game out to record their third consecutive clean sheet in the league, a detail Iraola pointed to with some satisfaction given how difficult a venue Bournemouth have become under Marco Rose.
“I’m always happy with the result because I know this is a very difficult place to get three points,” Iraola said. It is hard to argue. Bournemouth’s home form under Rose has been stubborn even in defeat, and this was their fifth league match of the season without losing by more than a single goal.
Bournemouth left to reflect, Liverpool to build
For Bournemouth, the result leaves them without a win from five league games, sitting seventeenth with just three points, level with Coventry City in the bottom half of the table. Rose was honest about where the game turned. “We couldn’t see that one team deserved to win,” he said. “It is disappointing.” His side had chances of their own, and the margins were thin, but thin margins have not been going Bournemouth’s way this season.
It is a sharp change in fortunes for a club that finished sixth under Iraola last season, their highest ever Premier League placing, built on an eighteen match unbeaten run that also delivered a first taste of European football. Replacing a manager who leaves for one of the biggest jobs in the country was always going to be a difficult act to follow, and Rose is discovering that in real time.
Liverpool, meanwhile, continue to find their feet under their new head coach without ever looking spectacular. Iraola replaced Arne Slot after his dismissal at the end of May, and while the early results have been solid rather than dazzling, sixth place and nine points from five games represents a reasonable platform heading into the coming weeks. Three clean sheets in a row suggest the defensive foundations Iraola built his Bournemouth sides on are starting to take shape at Anfield too, even while the attacking football finds its rhythm.
There is a symmetry to all of this that will not have been lost on anyone connected with either club. The manager who gave Bournemouth their best years left for Liverpool, and the striker who arrived at Anfield with such fanfare and endured such a difficult start is now delivering the goals that were always the point of signing him. Sunday brought both stories together in the same ninety minutes, and Liverpool walked away with the points that mattered most.
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