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On the night Liverpool's second-most expensive player stepped out in club colours for the first time, their record signing offered a useful reminder of his qualities. As Bradley Barcola took his place on the visiting bench at Portman Road for Liverpool's Friday night engagement with Ipswich Town following his $163 million move from Paris Saint-Germain. Alexander Isak finally started to look like a man comfortable with the $170m price tag slung around his shoulders a year ago. It also won't have escaped Barcola's attention that the man starting in his favoured left-wing berth, Cody Gakpo, weighed in with two fine assists as Isak plundered an early brace to secure a 2-0 win. Liverpool finished the game with Gakpo playing at centre-forward as Barcola replaced Isak in the most collectively pricey substitution in English football history. The France winger instantly showed a couple of lovely touches, and was sprightly and purposeful – all familiar traits from his time at PSG. He'll be a lot of fun. Andoni Iraola's first two games in charge of Liverpool weren't much fun. His team deserved credit for the spirit they showed in twice coming from behind in both matches to salvage 2-2 draws against Newcastle and Nottingham Forest. They deserved plenty of criticism for haphazardly wandering into such danger in the first place. The first two weekends of the season highlighted how tough it might be for Iraola to impart the intense, vertical style he succeeded with at Rayo Vallecano andf Bournemouth under higher stakes at Anfield, before considering the uneven and imbalanced squad he inherited. MORE: Can Andoni Iraola get the best out of Florian Wirtz? That latter factor is something he's just going to have to grapple with, although a couple of important defensive interventions by Ronald Araujo eased concerns around the problem position of right-back a little. By that point, Isak had made himself the story, scoring a clinical double within nine minutes, even if he's unlikely to have many Premier League goalkeepers be as generous to him as Kjell Scherpen was here. The passes laid on for both goals from Gakpo were superb, making Liverpool's flirting with selling the Netherlands international to Tottenham or Manchester City during the final days of the transfer window all the more puzzling. Gakpo has not been flavour of the month with the Anfield faithful for a little while, and there was a sense of few tears being shed at the prospect of his departure, but in East Anglia he thrived as a man who has rapidly grasped exactly what is required in an Iraola team. Liverpool stats vs. Ipswich All three of the successful through balls in the match were made by Liverpool, with Gakpo's assists making up most of that number. He has now set up all three of Isak's goals this term. Liverpool's passing was purposeful, as evidenced by Opta data showing that they made 48 more forward passes than their opponents. "We were talking about, when we got the ball, getting it forward as quickly as possible," Isak told Sky Sports in his player-of-the-match interview afterwards. The message had got through. Gakpo, Isak, Vitor Munoz and Florian Wirtz also led from the front without the ball as the Reds won back possession inside the attacking third seven times before the break. "Today we were much, much better in our press. We were recovering very high," Iraola said. "That way, we were able to contact with him [Isak] very high." The travelling supporters serenading Isak at full time was a long-overdue moment in Liverpool colours for the Sweden striker. A confident No. 9 is obviously a boost for Iraola, but he is likely to take even more pleasure in the fact that this first Premier League victory in his new job came from a team that looked like it belonged to him.