Alexander Isak’s second-half finish gave Liverpool victory at Bournemouth on an afternoon when Andoni Iraola returned to the club he once managed. At the final whistle, victory secured, Iraola embraced both his current players and the Bournemouth squad he had guided to new heights the previous season. Liverpool were not the overwhelming, suffocating force their manager hopes they will become, but they did enough to claim three points.
The goal itself was straightforward. Cody Gakpo, who has now supplied all four of Isak’s goals this season, crossed from the right. James Hill dived in to extinguish the threat of Florian Wirtz at the front post, and the ball dropped to an unmarked Isak on the edge of the six-yard box, who stroked it in. It capped a peculiar performance from the striker, whose only other shot had been a first-time effort ballooned high and wide.
Much of the occasion belonged to Iraola. His body of work at Bournemouth, improving season on season and eclipsing the club’s points record in successive campaigns, had led him to this point, and the transition to his successor Marco Rose was smooth enough that the pair spent an hour together on Iraola’s last day at Bournemouth’s training base, stopping only when the sporting director, Tiago Pinto, interrupted to remind them there were other things on the agenda. As Iraola walked along the front row of the home dugout to shake hands with Rose’s staff, the bass of Never Tear Us Apart sounded over the speakers. All the niceties, Iraola said, could wait until afterwards.
There were familiar faces on both sides. Tommy Elphick, who captained Bournemouth to the Premier League in 2015 and followed Iraola to Liverpool, embraced old colleagues on the pitch side before the warm-up, while Dominik Szoboszlai and Milos Kerkez shared an embrace with Alex Toth, their Hungary teammate. Kerkez replaced Kostas Tsimikas at left-back in one of three changes from Liverpool’s stalemate with Fulham.
Bournemouth were intent on building on Thursday’s history-making victory 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 from squeezing in at his near post. Pablo de la Torre, Iraola’s fitness coach and a former member of his staff at Bournemouth, made the visitors’ intent clear inside the opening 30 seconds by wresting the ball away from Adam Smith to delay a quick throw-in. Szoboszlai dropped a typically vicious free-kick wide of Djordje Petrovic’s post and Petrovic saved a deflected Bradley Barcola shot with his legs, but Liverpool spent much of the first half containing Bournemouth’s threats, who attacked from all angles as Iraola knew they would.
Early in the second half Szoboszlai was booked for a foul on Alex Scott, but Liverpool showed glimpses of their quality. Iraola urged Isak on as the striker made tracks down the right flank, only for his cross to fly towards the scaffolding structure in a corner of the ground that forms part of Bournemouth’s ongoing stadium upgrade. Wirtz saw a disguised pass for Isak cut out, and Bournemouth flew forward, the again-impressive Jérémy Jacquet making it difficult for Ryan Christie to connect with a low cross at the front post before Christie chopped inside Szoboszlai and Scott switched play with a pinged diagonal pass.
Bournemouth seemed to be growing in confidence, but then Gakpo easily bypassed Adrien Truffert, usually such a dependable performer since signing from Rennes last summer, and the decisive ball arrived. From there Bournemouth appeared to run out of juice and Liverpool eked out the victory. Iraola pointed his players towards the scoreboard after a free-kick on halfway and, seconds later, it was job done, returning Liverpool to winning ways in the Premier League.