Brighton’s impressive run was blown off course at Anfield where Liverpool performed with an appetite and urgency at both ends of the pitch that showed Andoni Iraola’s methods taking root. It was Liverpool, deserving winners on home soil for the first time in the Premier League this season, who looked upwardly mobile.
There was more evidence of the expensive trio of Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Bradley Barcola feeling at home and adapting to Iraola’s demands. Wirtz was instrumental in an opening goal officially credited to Brighton’s Pascal Gross and Isak scored for the sixth time in six Premier League appearances to shatter the visitors’ sequence of four successive league wins. The sight of Barcola sprinting back to help his defence and Ronald Araújo smashing into challenges, as Liverpool stubbornly defended their lead and their box in the second half, satisfied Iraola just as much as his side’s incisiveness before the break.
