Siren

The first match of the season is the siren of Greek mythology. It whispers "join us, come climb into the water, tell us your hottest takes". You have spent all Summer wondering and now you've seen just a little soupçon of football, tempting you to confirm all your prejudices or, maybe, revise everything drastically. My counsel is to strap yourself to the mast though friends, to stuff up your ears, blind your eyes, resist the salty temptress. For Match Day One seldom provides even a hint of the whole picture.

Games like Saturday least of all. An uncommon opponent and a curate's egg of a game, where if you asked me at 1.40pm how we'd do this season and then again at 1.55pm the two answers would be about 10 places apart. McKenna granted my wish and most of the gang from last year got their shot and for 55 minutes they all looked a good match for Liverpool. By that point, we'd yet to concede a shot on target or a big chance of any kind, we'd competed on possession, territory, edged it in terms of chances. With a little less stage fright in a few good situations, we might have gone in with a lead.

Yes, a few players looked like they were being stretched to their outer limits, particularly when they found themselves running back towards goal. Luke Woolfenden got rolled by Luis Diaz pulling the same move that worked just fine on Rhys Healey and Danny Ward in his last competitive outing, on more than one occasion Leif Davis needed the very tips of his toes to prevent Mo Salah wriggling free, Wes Burns quickly discovered that Andy Robertson also has afterburners he can turn on.

Yet we were consistently finding ways to prevent meaningful efforts on our goal, whilst carving out half-chances of our own. The boisterous Liam Delap sent Omari Hutchinson clear, only for the Liverpool defence to suddenly reappear from nowhere. Delap had his own fun with one electric run down the left and into the penalty area, possibly setting Jarell Quansah's career back a year or so in the process.

Delap and Greaves, in the end the only new faces to start the game, had encouraging starts. Delap was an excellent target for much of the game and whilst the Ipswich defence spent the first half playing the game at roughly 105% of their maximum capacity, Greaves glided through most of it. Our other Summer signing, Omari Hutchinson, looked a bit frenetic first half, like he thought he needed to win the game single-handedly, but looked more and more composed (and threatening) as the game progressed, even as Liverpool took control.

It was the kind of 45 minutes that gives you rather precipitous notions. If, you tell yourself, we can only reproduce this sort of performance regularly against the lesser lights of the league, we'll surely be top half! Yet resist, my friends, for you surely know deep down that context is everything. There's something about these impossible games, those opponents you know you have no business competing with, that concentrates the minds of players and supporters in a way that your more run of the mill fixture just can't replicate. Fulham just won't be the same.

Second half the volume of lovely gasp-worthy touches by Liverpool players increased and cracks started appearing. Wes Burns going down injured seemed to disrupt some key part of our precariously balanced system. To my eyes this primarily manifested as Ryan Gravenberch finally exiting containment to sit comfortably in space and dictate things from just between our forward line and midfield. What in the first half had been barely a pocket suddenly felt like acres. Not enough pressure on the ball there had knock on effects all over. It didn’t take much breathing room for Liverpool to get their game going. In the 60th minute it got the ball into Salah, then back into a free Alexander-Arnold, who angled a precise through ball inside Leif Davis and that was that.

It was Liverpool's first shot on target but in truth we'd given up big chances in the five minutes before that and continued to do so for the next fifteen minutes after (6 in total). Strangely, the relative efficiency of our respective offside traps seemed to be a key issue. Over and over again, Liverpool looked offside but weren’t, whilst our forwards were caught every time. Strange to make it to the land of elite technical football and get a lesson in something as old school as “doing the Tony Mowbray”.

So it continued until the Red Men's intensity dropped a little. In that period it felt like every negative prediction coming true, like McKenna's “naïve” plan to press high and take these teams on would see us endangering that Sheffield United goals conceded record. Suddenly it felt like half the poor lads who'd got us here were technically and athletically well out of their depth.  

Yet this impulse too must be resisted! Do not heed the maidens on the rocks exhorting you to curse your shipmates, who you know well to be sturdy and loyal men. We must have learned by now that setting rigid ceilings on what this group are capable of is a fool's game. Let's not be hasty judging what kind of contribution we can get from the boys of 2023-24, nor what role the new acquisitions will play. We shall see if marking Adama Traore is as difficult as keeping track of Mo Salah or if Saša Lukić and Andreas Pereira prove as difficult to contain as Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai.    

On day one you never know who's overcooked, who's running on momentum and not much else, which teams will look stronger or weaker after judicious or foolhardy recruitment. Maybe Liverpool will be something like as good as last year and a 2-0 home defeat will be more or less what every other team outside the top six will experience too. Maybe the first hour was a mirage, a product of Liverpool taking longer than us to wake from their pre-season slumber. Maybe the Slot-era will be more David Moyes at Man U and it'll look like possible points squandered against fallible opposition.

What we are going to be this season is even less clear. As the season accelerates, more squad depth and more time on the pitch might allow us to sustain that first half intensity for longer periods (or maybe not if it was just new Premier League adrenaline). Last year our players got stronger after our opening game, as they got more accustomed to the requirements of the level. McKenna will help the bright ones adapt their game to fit what they can and can't do at this Premier League pace, just as he did with Burgess and Hladky last season

Some players will inevitably get displaced by new signings, although there will surely be an awkward transitional phase, where choices have to be made between players who know McKenna's patterns like the back of their hand and replacements with better technique and athleticism but less knowledge of the system. That baton pass will likely wait until nearer the end of August. There will be plenty to pass judgement on soon enough. For now, I’m quietly encouraged that there we’re systemically able to compete, that Delap and Greaves appear to be seriously good acquisitions, that Woolfenden, Luongo, Chaplin, Burns and Walton will have enough to contribute and potentially maybe more than just that. Beyond that I’m staying out of the water.

Jacob Greaves v Liverpool

Minutes 90

Shots 2

Accurate passes 25/30 (83%)

Touches 48

Passes into final third 1

Accurate long balls 1/2 (50%)

Tackles won 0/0

Blocks 1

Clearances 8

Interceptions 2

Defensive actions 11

Recoveries 2

Duels won 6/8 (75%)

Was fouled 3

Fouled 0