Eight goals and counting: Isak joins elite Liverpool company with Palace winner
Alexander Isak may not have been the busiest player on the pitch at Selhurst Park, but once again he was the one who mattered in front of goal. His late strike sealed a 3-1 win over Crystal Palace and took him to eight goals for the season, already double what he managed in the whole of the last campaign.
Journalist David Lynch, speaking to Dave Davis on a podcast after the game, believes Liverpool are now using the Swede in a very specific way, and in our view the results speak for themselves.
Joining a list of Anfield greats
Davis kicked things off with a striking statistic credited to Michael Reid. Only a handful of Liverpool players have scored at least five goals in the club’s first five away league matches of a season: Michael Owen in 2003/04, Fernando Torres in 2007/08, Luis Suarez in 2012/13 and Mohamed Salah in 2021/22. Isak has now added his name for 2026/27.
Read more: Wirtz’s first league goal of the season shows Iraola’s attacking blueprint is clicking
That is serious company. Davis even suggested that picking apart Isak’s all-round game feels a bit pointless while he keeps finding the net, and we have some sympathy with that. When a striker is delivering at this rate, the goals are the argument.
A focal point rather than a facilitator
Lynch’s take was that Isak is currently operating in a role similar to Erling Haaland’s at Manchester City. Liverpool do not involve him much in their build-up, but when the ball does reach him, it tends to be in dangerous areas where he can hurt the opposition.
He was clear that Isak is an excellent finisher, and acknowledged that the Palace game was hardly his most influential ninety minutes. Even so, Lynch noted that when Liverpool get shots to him, a good number go in. He also argued that Haaland’s trophy haul proves a striker who offers relatively little outside the box is no barrier to winning titles. Having a forward of Isak’s quality, he said, is enormously useful when it comes to getting you over the line.
We would push that slightly further. For years Liverpool’s attack has been built around fluid movement and forwards who drop deep to link play. Isak gives Iraola something different: a reliable finisher who does not need to be involved constantly to decide a match.
How the Palace goal came about
The goal itself came late on, finishing off a swift Liverpool counter with Florian Wirtz providing the final ball. Lynch broke down Isak’s afternoon neatly. Three good chances, two missed, the third buried. His logic was simple: if Liverpool create three decent openings for Isak in a game, they can expect a goal from him.
Lynch was especially taken with the finish. Isak found himself facing Palace defender Chris Richards and had the composure to check back inside, wrong-footing Richards before slotting home. It was the kind of calm decision-making that separates good strikers from top ones, and Lynch made a point of saying how well he felt Isak took the chance.
The low-block question
There is a caveat, and Lynch raised it himself. He wondered how much Isak can really influence matches against deep, well-organised defences, where space in the box is at a premium and service is harder to come by. It is a fair question, and one Iraola will need to answer as more teams sit in against Liverpool.
Yet Lynch’s conclusion kept coming back to the same place. As long as Isak keeps getting the ball in the area and finishing the way he has been, that is good enough. He was also pleased to see the striker staying fit and clearly enjoying his football, and he hopes that continues through the winter.
Our take is that Liverpool should not overthink this. A season ago, the Reds were crying out for a dependable goalscorer. Now they have one who is in form, fit and full of confidence. Lynch put it best when he pointed out that, ultimately, football is about winning games, and Isak is doing exactly what is needed to make that happen.