Three minutes: is that all it takes to kickstart a career? For all the pre-match talk and excitement surrounding Liverpool’s star signing of the summer in Bradley Barcola, Friday night under the Suffolk lights was finally time for the joint-most expensive purchase in English football history to make his first significant mark in Merseyside red. It’s only taken him 12 months.
What a morale-boosting evening this was for Alexander Isak at Portman Road. Loitering tantalisingly on the shoulder of a beleaguered Ipswich defence, the Sweden international notched two goals in three first-half minutes here – his first brace for Liverpool and just his fifth and sixth Premier League goals since that £125m move from Newcastle – to set Andoni Iraola on his way to a comfortable first Premier League victory in the Reds dugout. “With Alex, if he is fit, if he is available, if he is in good shape, I think he will produce the numbers,” Iraola said. We shall see.
