Iraola's rocky Anfield home debut

Forest do it again at Anfield

For the third successive Premier League visit, Nottingham Forest left Anfield without losing. That is the kind of run that starts to feel like a pattern, and it arrived at the worst possible moment for Iraola, whose first home league game in charge of Liverpool ended with the Kop watching Forest hold on for a point they had, by all accounts, worked hard to earn.

Forest led twice during the match, and Liverpool pegged them back both times. Credit for the response, then. But the inability to push on and win a game they were level in, at home, on a night that called for something more, is exactly the sort of thing a new manager cannot afford to let slide.

The board that became a talking point

Iraola's post-match frustration centred on more than just the result. According to The Guardian, he was angered by a malfunctioning electronic substitution board that he believes delayed his planned changes by roughly three minutes. In a game decided by fine margins, with Forest scoring a penalty in the second half, Iraola's view is that the timing of those substitutions mattered.

That is his opinion, not a confirmed causal link. But a manager raising a technical failure in his very first home press conference signals how tightly wound the evening was.

The broken board did not lose Liverpool the game on its own. Iraola said as much by also criticising his side's first-half performance, which suggests the problems ran deeper than a delayed substitution.

A new era, an old problem

Iraola arrived at Liverpool carrying real momentum from his work at Bournemouth, where his teams were organised, aggressive in transition and hard to rattle. The early signs at Anfield suggest the project is still being assembled. A home draw against Forest is not a crisis, but it is a reminder that the gap between a good idea and a functioning team takes time to close.

Forest, for their part, will take the point and the streak. Three visits to Anfield, three times unbeaten: that is a record that deserves to be said plainly.