Ipswich Town started their Premier League campaign with a spirited 2-0 home defeat to Liverpool. Stuart Watson reflects on the action.
SPECIAL DAY
After 22 often highly-demoralising years away, Ipswich Town finally returned to the big time.
“There is a generation of supporters who thought they might never see Premier League football in Ipswich again and there’s a new generation of supporters who never have seen Premier League football who probably thought they never would,” said Kieran McKenna, perfectly summing up what this day meant in his pre-match press conference.
Broadcast trucks packed the old Staples site, half-and-half scarf sellers lined the streets, a queue formed outside Planet Blues three hours before kick-off and national media was full of ‘Tractor Boys’ talk. The excitement in the air was palpable. Many got to their seats earlier than usual just to make sure that Ipswich were, indeed, about to face Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah and co.
Come kick-off, the atmosphere inside a packed Portman Road reached fever pitch. Town’s team had 10 players making their full Premier League debut. Seven of them had been part of the League One promotion just two years ago. Would the boys in blue feed off the energy in the air or be overawed by the occasion? We soon got our answer...
CRUNCH!
With less than two minutes on the clock, Jacob Greaves set the tone when smashing into a firm by fair challenge on Dominik Szoboszlai just over the halfway line. That turned the volume up another notch.
Seconds later, van Dijk presented the ball straight to Omari Hutchinson and his shot had to be charged down by Jarell Quansah. Soon after that, Wes Burns threatened to charge in behind Andy Robertson. Portman Road was rocking. Liverpool didn’t know what had hit them.
Burns had said in the build-up that ‘this is not a time to go into our shells’, while McKenna insisted it was important to keep the essence of the brave and bold playing identity that had swept the team to successive promotions. They weren’t just hollow words.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
Former Ipswich and Liverpool legend John Wark was interviewed at half-time. ‘We’ve been the better side,’ he declared, to huge cheers, making no attempt to hide where his true loyalties lay. He wasn’t wrong either.
Liverpool went into the break having failed to produce a single shot on target. Blues players had thrown themselves in the way of crosses and shots and repelled a string of dead balls into their box.
Town, meanwhile, had created some good opportunities to score. Twice, Hutchinson charged away on the counter-attack from well-defended corners. Sadly he couldn’t make the most of the overloads. The ball got away from him in the first instance, while his low reversed shot lacked power and precision in the second.
In between that, the outstanding Greaves rose highest to meet a Sam Morsy free-kick delivery and connect with a downward header that Alisson did well to land on.
Towards the end of the half, Axel Tuanzebe saw a header loop onto the roof of the net, while Liam Delap produced an outrageous touch down the left that had the crowd on their feet and Quansah trailing in his dust.
“One lesson for us is finding that level of execution in the first half to get the goal that I don’t think would have been undeserved,” said McKenna.
“It’s the execution and the timing of the pass, the angle and the weight of the pass, the timing of the supporting run. If we had have got those elements better, then we would have had a couple of big, big chances. Certainly the scoreline could have been different at half-time.”
A CLOSE CALL
A big moment in this match came in the 53rd minute.
After Hutchinson and Davis combined well down the left, van Dijk looked to have clumsily run across the heels of Delap in the box. The crowd first urged for a penalty and then, with referee Tim Robinson unmoved, started chanting for VAR.
Ultimately nothing was given because of a tight offside call going against Davis in the build-up. Had that not been the case then I think van Dijk would have been in trouble.
CLASS SHOWS
Having put so much into the opening hour, Town’s intensity naturally started to fade as the second half wore on. Liverpool, with a bit more room to breath, started to find their groove.
A warning came when Diogo Jota glanced a glorious headed chance wide from Alexander-Arnold's superb delivery. Not long afterwards, Alexander-Arnold provided a well-weighted pass up the line and Salah swept a first time cross that Jota coolly finished.
Less than five minutes later, it was 2-0. This time van Dijk’s raking diagonal was taken down by Salah, he ghosted inside Davis, played a one-two with Szoboszlai and lifted the ball past Christian Walton. That’s Premier League goal number 156 for the Egyptian international.
Welcome to the top-flight. That’s what world class players can do to you if you lose just a fraction of focus or fitness.
SHOW OF CHARACTER
For a spell after the second goal, it looked like the floodgates could open.
Luis Diaz skipped around Walton, but couldn’t quite pick out Salah with the cut-back. Salah side-footed straight at Walton following a Szoboslai through ball. Davis had to make an important intervention as Diaz tried to pick out Szoboszlai with a low cross. Ben Johnson, on for the injured Burns, produced a good block to deny World Cup winner Alexis Mac Allister following Salah’s sumptuous outside of the boot ball and Diaz’s square pass.
It would have been easy for the battery to have gone flat both on and off the pitch at that stage. Instead, the home crowd provided plenty of encouragement and that helped the exhausted players fight to the end and keep the scoreline respectable.
Indeed, the Blues finished the stronger as sub Ali Al-Hamadi, the first Iraqi to play in the Premier League, really put himself about up top against the team he grew up supporting.
Sammie Szmodics, introduced for his debut little more than 24 hours after signing from Blackburn, produced a smart backheel deep into stoppage-time too, with Allison subsequently denying Greaves.
That final 10 minutes, for me, was just as encouraging as the opening 45. It’s a reminder of the togetherness and ‘running towards adversity’ spirit that runs through the core of this club. That, more than ever, is certainly going to required this season.
WELL DONE WALTON
Giant goalkeeper Aro Muric, the £8m summer signing from Burnley, failed a fitness test on the morning of this game having taken ‘a knock in his calf’ in training.
Step forwards Christian Walton in a reversal of fortunes. This time last year, remember, he suffered a foot injury in the days leading up to the Championship opener at Sunderland and wasn’t able to displace Vaclav Hladky once fit.
The Cornish custodian provided a reminder of his class in this game. He produced a brave block at Diaz’s feet, was quick off his line when required, got his hands on some tricky high set-piece deliveries and made two big stops to deny Salah and Conor Bradley in stoppage-time.
“Look, I think that's a big positive from the day if I'm honest,” said McKenna. “Christian Walton's come into the game having not played a league fixture for 15/16 months, having lost his position through an injury, but he’s performed really, really well today. There's a big reinforcement for the group that everyone needs to be ready for when needed.”
LEARNING ON THE JOB
International caps: Ipswich 79 Liverpool 628.
Premier League starts: Ipswich 16 Liverpool 1,593.
That was the scale of the task. That is why this was a performance to be immensely proud of.
It won’t get any easier. Town's baptism of fire continues with a trip to four-in-a-row champions Manchester City next weekend.
“The way the fixtures came out, with Liverpool and Man City first two games, we took as a real positive," said McKenna.
"We know that it's going to give us a real good insight into the top echelons of the league and club football in the world.
"We're right in at the deep end, but we feel like that can hopefully fast-track our development and our adjustment to this league.
"We know on the flip side that there's a chance we'll have no points after two games. The game after that is then Fulham (h), who are another excellent team. After that it's Brighton (a). Every game is going to be difficult.
"It's just about our journey and how we can continue to improve physically, tactically, technically and mentally over the next few months.
"We won't talk too much about points and league positions. That's not how we work how we've got to this point. It'll be about full commitment to each game, learn our lessons and keep getting ready to go again."
With so many finding their feet at this level, key players to come back from injury, big new signings to get up to speed and the recruitment drive not yet over, it’s inevitable this group will improve over the course of the season. I'm looking forward to seeing how fast and far that growth is.
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