Bournemouth had not lost a Sunday home game in eight, and Iraola came back with Liverpool and ended it
Alexander Isak’s finish just before the hour gave Liverpool a 1-0 win at the Vitality Stadium, on Andoni Iraola’s first return to the club he managed for three years.
Sep 20, 2026
Andoni Iraola spent three years making the Vitality Stadium an awkward afternoon out, and on Sunday he came back and took a piece of that work apart himself. Liverpool won 1-0 on the south coast, Alexander Isak scored the only goal just before the hour, and a Bournemouth side that had not lost a Sunday home game in eight attempts lost this one.
One save early, one chance taken late
The first half gave up almost nothing. Bournemouth’s best moment came in the 18th minute, when Marcus Tavernier pulled the ball back and Evanilson found space near the post. Alisson got across to smother it. At the time it looked like a goalkeeper doing routine work on a quiet afternoon. An hour later it looked like the save that decided the match.
Liverpool’s goal arrived from the right. Cody Gakpo drove a cross in, Florian Wirtz got a touch on it, and the deflection dropped the ball into Isak’s path inside the box. He took it first time. Bournemouth pushed for the rest of the half without properly working Alisson again.
Liverpool are unbeaten, and Isak has already passed last season
Five games in, Liverpool have two wins and three draws. Nine points puts them sixth, and this is only their second win in a season that has otherwise been a procession of draws. The defensive record is the quieter story and probably the better one. This was a third league clean sheet in a row, and Liverpool had not managed three in a row since a run of four in September 2024.
Isak’s four goals leave him level with Erling Haaland at the top of the scoring charts. He has now scored more league goals in five matches of this season than he managed in the whole of his first year at Anfield, when a broken fibula and a string of muscle problems held him to three. That is the kind of start Liverpool were waiting for.
Wirtz is the one still waiting. The German has yet to score in the Premier League this season, and a deflection off his boot is not the contribution that ends the debate about what Liverpool paid for him.
Bournemouth are still without a win
Bournemouth have three points from five matches and sit 17th. All three came from draws. They have scored six and conceded eight, and the pattern so far is a team that keeps games close without ever quite winning one.
The history made Sunday stranger still. Iraola managed Bournemouth 127 times between 2023 and 2026 and won 47 of those games, and for most of that spell Liverpool were the one opponent he could not solve, until Bournemouth finally beat them 3-2 at this ground in January. This was his first meeting with a former Premier League club since taking the Liverpool job. It continued a pattern: Liverpool managers have tended not to lose on their first return to a former club.