It was a winning start at Liverpool for Arne Slot, who steered the Reds to a 2-0 victory over newly-promoted Ipswich Town at Portman Road, now bringing the Tractor Boys back to reality in the Premier League with their first top-flight match in 22 years.
Although Ipswich made a decent fist of things in an opening half of actual enterprise, with both Jacob Greaves and Omari Hutchinson getting efforts on target against Alisson Becker, they found themselves unable to sustain the intensity after the break.
Liverpool, who labored in the first half to stamp the authority of Slot’s new approach on this game and were jeered following a sequence of misplaced passes, awoke after the break. Diogo Jota opened the scoring, stroking Mohamed Salah’s feed into the roof of the net, before Salah himself struck, extending his record for most Premier League openening-day goals with his ninth.
While Liverpool could have had more, the two goals were enough to secure three points and extend their opening-day unbeaten record to 13. For Ipswich, it proved to be a severe induction to Premier League life, with manager Kieran McKenna and his side now facing the daunting task of traveling to Manchester City next.
Slot’s Liverpool will face more difficult challenges, but this gave a good start to the Anfield reign.
