Clunky, disconnected Liverpool are levels below where they need to be, writes IAN LADYMAN after Reds salvaged a point against Nottingham Forest – and one defender looks like he will never make it at Anfield

In the final minute of this game, with Liverpool’s need at its deepest, the Dutch midfielder Ryan Gravenberch sold the Nottingham Forest defence a lovely dummy to allow his team-mate Alexander Isak a run on goal. Unfortunately for Liverpool, Isak had bought the dummy, too, and the ball ran away to insignificance.

And that very much sums up this Liverpool team. Clunky, disconnected and, as a result, largely starved of attacking menace. So far this season, Andoni Iraola’s team have survived on moments. Four times in two games they have trailed, against Newcastle and Forest, and four times they have recovered to take two draws which have served to keep the discontent to a mere grumble in the early days of Iraola’s reign.

There are some chinks of light. Isak – with so much resting on his shoulders this season – scored a goal and so, wonderfully, did summer signing, 23-year-old Spaniard Victor Munoz. That one, with eight minutes left, was a ripper at the Kop end and came after a smart assist from Florian Wirtz. Another positive there as the German had a decent game.

Over the course of this match however, Liverpool’s enduring issues were once again laid bare. As they did at Newcastle last week, Liverpool conceded bad goals. They remain too easy to play through. Isak, despite his goal, continues to look largely disconnected from the rhythms and patterns – such as they are – of his team. His goal – side footed in from a couple of yards – may help him but he – and his team – will need much more.

Put simply, Iraola’s team continue to look two or three levels below where they need to be. Last season under Arne Slot, the 2025 Premier League champions were accused of being slow, boring and with a tendency to self-harm. To a degree they still are.

Here Forest – no strangers to winning at Anfield recently or indeed in their 1970s and 1980s glory days – found space in the Liverpool half in which to play the kind of smart and incisive football that became manager Oliver Glasner’s trademark at Crystal Palace. They were impressive but Liverpool were at times shockingly complicit too.

New Liverpool central defender Jeremy Jacquet looks an assured footballer but Iraola’s team continues to be failed by its full-backs. One, Milos Kerkez, may yet be a Liverpool player. The other, Jeremie Frimpong, looks as though he never will. He was poor at Newcastle last week and truly pitiful here. He is a trier, but then we all know one of those don’t we?

Forest will, frankly, be disappointed not to have won. Had they done so, Liverpool could not have complained.

News of Bradley Barcola’s pending arrival had swept round Anfield before kick-off. At £123million, it feels like the kind of transfer that could go one way or the other and the truth is that Liverpool’s recent record when it comes to spending big money isn’t good. Isak and Wirtz – £225m between them – both played here with an awful lot to prove.

Liverpool do need some pace and some depth, though. The lack of both cost them dearly last season and though Munoz has given them some go-forward down the left here, there was a desperate bluntness about much of their first-half football.

There were some half chances – Munoz shot over just before half-time and Wirtz saw a header saved after rising to meet a Cody Gakpo cross. Wirtz also had a goal ruled out for offside. But there was precious little rhythm or intelligence or precision. At times, Iraola’s team resembled a group of strangers thrown together half an hour before kick-off.

Forest, on the other hand, looked well drilled and well coached and more confident in possession than maybe we would have expected given that they had lost the opening league game of Glasner’s reign at home to Leeds last weekend.

Forest have a record of doing well at Anfield and this place doesn’t scare them. Several times in the opening 20 minutes or so they worried Liverpool with the fluency and sharpness of their attacking football and when they took the lead midway through the opening half nobody inside Anfield was the slightest bit surprised.

It was a dreadful goal for Liverpool to concede, nevertheless. Newcastle cut through them from front to back to score twice on opening weekend and here the origins were to be found in a long kick downfield from Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels.

The Liverpool defence did manage to play a Forest forward offside but unfortunately it was the wrong one. And after Igor Jesus’s progress towards goal was halted by Alexis MacAllister, Morgan Gibbs-White picked up possession to supply Dan Ndoye and he passed the ball across Alisson and into the far corner at the Kop end with his right foot.

Ndoye had come close with a header moments before the goal while Jesus had been denied twice by blocks from Jacquet and Kerkez. Liverpool could not say they had not been warned.

Liverpool did respond with spells of possession and appeared to have equalised within a few minutes only for Frimpong to have been offside in the build up to a low shot in to the corner on the turn by Wirtz.

That was a close one and it took VAR to provide the conclusive evidence. But as Liverpool continued to play their football in a way that their ailing centre-forward Isak clearly doesn’t understand, Forest came within an Alisson fingertip of doubling their lead moments before half-time.

The Brazilian may not quite be the goalkeeper he once was but this was a magnificent save all the same. Ola Aima embarrassed Munoz at the byline to pull the ball back for Jesus and the striker’s first time shot appeared to be heading for the roof of the net before Alisson managed to divert it over with both hands.

It felt like a pivotal moment in the game and indeed it was. A two-goal deficit may have proved too much for this Liverpool team. As it was, a slow opening to the second period eventually provided Liverpool with their equaliser.

Gakpo’s turn to get rid of Forest defender Neco Williams on the edge of the penalty area was superb and his low cross found Isak lurking at the back post to slide the ball in. With half an hour yet to play, Liverpool finally had something positive to work off.

It was shame, then, that nine minutes later they were behind once again. Liam Delap – a midweek buy from Chelsea – had only been on the field a few minutes when he found the Liverpool defence asleep at a throw-in and delivered the ball into Williams’ path. The former Liverpool defender couldn’t quite lift the ball over Alisson and in at the far post but he still drew a clear foul from the goalkeeper and Gibbs-White smashed in the penalty.

Defeat would have felt catastrophic for Iraola and Liverpool, especially given the presence in the directors’ box of new vice-chairman Amir Bhatia. As it was, Liverpool’s best piece of football of the new season saved them the kind of inquest that characterised last season.

Wirtz’s ball into Munoz on the edge of the penalty area in the 83rd minute was sharp but it was the Spaniard’s turn that unlocked the door. That gave Munoz space and his rising drive crashed into the net off the underside of the bar.

The late Gravenberch/Isak cameo was indicative of a larger malaise and this is Iraola’s problem to solve. His team have come perilously close to losing both of their opening games and do not yet have his coaching fingerprints on it.

The arrival of Barcola will lend Liverpool pace and star quality. It will not solve fundamental problems that have carried over from last season to this.