Iraola's Liverpool still searching for the win after another late rescue at Anfield

Alexander Isak's first goal of the season arrived in the 77th minute at Anfield on 29 August 2026, and did nothing to settle the question Iraola walked out of the stadium still trying to answer. Liverpool twice came from behind to draw 2-2 with Nottingham Forest, leaving the new manager without a Premier League win after three matches in charge and with the familiar new-manager script in tatters around his feet.

The headline story is the scoreboard. The subplot is everything around it: a substitution hold-up that visibly infuriated Iraola, a striker who scored but managed only 13 touches in open play, and an opposition manager who walked away believing his side should have taken all three points. Iraola's Liverpool are not just winless; they are visibly unsettled, and the post-match reckoning has begun before the international break.

A point that feels like a defeat

Forest were, for long stretches, the better side. Oliver Glasner, their manager, described himself as "proud but disappointed" after the final whistle, the disappointment resting on the sense that the visitors had been in position to win, not merely to survive. According to BBC Sport's player ratings for the match, Morgan Gibbs-White was the standout performer for Forest, a judgment that maps onto the run of the game from a red perspective.

Iraola's mood was harder to read but easier to decode. He used his post-match media to single out a specific procedural grievance. An official's substitution board delayed a planned triple change moments before a Forest goal, and the manager made clear he was angry about it. In context, the complaint is small. Structurally, it is not: Iraola wants control of game-state management, and the officials, for a few seconds, took it from him.

Isak, finally, but in what shape

The headline from the second-half fightback is Isak. He scored his first goal of the season in the 77th minute, the kind of intervention that, on a different afternoon, would dominate the post-mortem. On this afternoon it merely sharpened the question BBC Sport posed in its tactical piece: a goal, but only 13 touches, so how does Iraola get the best out of him?

The 13-touch figure is the kind of stat that rearranges an entire debate. It means Isak was neither the focal point of Liverpool's build-up nor a disconnected bystander; he was an isolated target, and the connection between his goal and his overall influence is thin. Iraola's task is not to coax more goals out of his centre-forward; it is to integrate him into a coherent attacking structure. The goal is proof the talent is intact. The stat is evidence the system is not.

Iraola's own diagnosis

The manager was candid. He labelled his side "passive" and said they needed to "learn lessons" quickly, language that, from a new coach three matches in, can be read either as honest accountability or as the early edges of pressure. The framing matters because Iraola was appointed to refresh a team that had grown stale, and the early returns are a team that still looks both uncertain in possession and vulnerable to the kind of direct running Forest offered from the wide channels.

Two facts sit in tension here. The first: Liverpool rescued a point from a game they were losing twice, which is the kind of resilience that wins leagues. The second: they had to rescue a point at home against a Forest side whose manager believes they should have won, which is the kind of performance that costs coaches jobs. Both can be true. The question is which one survives the next two weeks.

What the next fortnight tells us

Three matches into Iraola's tenure, the cleanest read is this: Liverpool have not yet lost, and that is now the single most important defensive fact in their season. A winless start, three draws in, becomes a narrative problem only if September produces no victories. The international break that follows this round is, in that sense, a small mercy: it gives Iraola two weeks to recalibrate the Isak question and to settle the substitution rhythms that the officials' board interrupted.

The other side of the ledger is Forest. Glasner's side leave Anfield with a point that, by their own manager's reckoning, understates the performance. If the same Forest show up at the City Ground against the league's mid-tier opposition, the table will tell a different story about Saturday than the touchline mood suggested.

Monexus framed this not as a crisis at Liverpool, three matches in is too early for that language, but as the first credible stress test of Iraola's project. The BBC's tactical focus on Isak's 13 touches, and Iraola's own "passive" verdict on his side, set the terms of the post-mortem; this piece follows that lead.

Wire provenance

This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/videos/cx2zw96094xo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cgjq65nvw38o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cd795e9ejgzo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/videos/cwyz8dr7jz3o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/videos/c8xkj45r2jno?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ckgwnnj281no?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss