Andoni Iraola's Frustration After Liverpool's Draw with Nottingham Forest

Andoni Iraola left his first Anfield league game shaking his head at far more than the scoreline.

Liverpool twice trailed Nottingham Forest and needed an 82nd‑minute blast from Víctor Muñoz to salvage a 2-2 draw, denying the visitors a third straight Premier League win on this ground. The comeback point did little to soften Iraola’s anger at a limp opening 45 minutes – or at an electronic board that chose the worst possible moment to fail.

Chaos on the touchline

Forest’s second goal came from the kind of detail that drives coaches mad. Liam Delap took a quick throw-in while Iraola stood on the touchline, ready to make a triple substitution. He never got the chance.

The fourth official could not display the numbers. The electronic board simply would not work.

“I cannot explain because I don’t have an explanation,” the Liverpool head coach said, visibly exasperated. “I wanted to make those substitutions about three minutes before. It was two, three, four times the ball had gone out. He was having some problems with the board. The penalty wouldn’t have happened if I had made the subs.”

From that throw-in, Forest earned a spot-kick, converted by Morgan Gibbs-White, and Anfield was staring at defeat in Iraola’s first home league game.

“I had complained the previous time,” he added. “The supporters were shouting and they were aware of the situation. I’ll leave you to decide whether it was a penalty or not.”

The malfunction became a flashpoint, but Iraola knew the real damage had been done long before the board broke.

A first half that cost them

For the second week running, Liverpool laboured badly at the start and paid the price.

“The first half was poor, it was not good enough,” Iraola admitted. “We haven’t controlled the game and after we improved a lot in the second half. We were much more intense, quicker on the ball and had more urgency, but it hasn’t been enough to win the game and we have to blame the first half.”

Forest fed off that passivity, twice moving in front and unsettling a home crowd expecting a statement performance to launch a new era at Anfield. Liverpool did respond after the break, pinning Forest back and finally breaking them with Muñoz’s emphatic late equaliser, but the damage was already baked into the scoreline.

“I am frustrated because we want to win, especially at home. It’s not a good result,” Iraola said. “We have come back from two results where we were losing and I like what we have done in the second half, but we haven’t been able to complete the comeback.”

Intensity, throw-ins and a warning sign

If the board malfunction was an oddity, the underlying issues were not. Iraola returned several times to the same theme: intensity, or the lack of it.

“In the first half we were too passive without the ball,” he said. “Afterwards we improved this and intensity gives you the chance to win duels and attack quicker and better. But in the first half there was a lack of intensity and we had issues with throw-ins today.”

Throw-ins, of all things, became a recurring problem – from basic organisation to the moment that led to Gibbs-White’s penalty. For a coach who builds his game on aggression, pressing and sharp transitions, that will sting almost as much as the dropped points.

Liverpool have now had to claw their way back from losing positions in both league outings under Iraola. The fight is there. The control, for now, is not.