Andoni Iraola's first league match as Liverpool manager was two minutes from defeat for most of the second half, and it ended with Dominik Szoboszlai standing over a penalty in the ninth minute of stoppage time at St James' Park. He scored it. Newcastle 2-2 Liverpool, and both teams have something to be aggrieved about.
Two minutes undid the comeback
Anthony Elanga scored inside five minutes, taking a fast break into the box and finishing across Alisson. Liverpool then spent fifty minutes getting back into it, and Cody Gakpo finally levelled on 55 from Ryan Gravenberch's pass. The equaliser lasted two minutes. Joe Willock, on as a substitute, put Newcastle back in front on 57.
That is the sequence that decided how the afternoon felt. A side that has just conceded is at its most vulnerable, and Newcastle attacked immediately rather than settling for the point they had just surrendered.
The penalty, and why Newcastle are furious
Víctor Muñoz, making his Liverpool debut, went down under Lewis Hall's challenge deep into stoppage time. VAR reviewed it, described the contact as knee into thigh, and let the decision stand. Szoboszlai scored with virtually the last kick.
"You call it a really soft one," said Newcastle manager Matthias Jaissle. "If you give that then there will be so many penalties in the future." He has a case on the contact and none at all on the ninety minutes before it.
Liverpool created plenty and finished almost none of it
61 per cent of the ball, 18 shots to Newcastle's nine, and 2.73 expected goals against 1.43. Six shots on target from eighteen attempts is the number that explains why this was not settled long before the penalty. Newcastle, with half the possession and half the shots, were the more clinical side until the last kick.
Isak came back and was contained
Alexander Isak's return to St James' Park, after an injury-disrupted first season at Liverpool, was the sub-plot the fixture was sold on. Newcastle's defence gave him nothing. It says something about Liverpool's afternoon that their goals came from Gakpo and a penalty, and that the debutant off the bench was the one who won it.
What Iraola will take from it
"I don't think we deserved to lose the game and I value the effort from the players," he said, and pointed at his substitutes. "The players coming from the bench gave us energy. I don't know if they played better, worse, but they gave us energy. And you can feel the way we want to play, everyone is not going to last 90 minutes."
That last line is the tell. Iraola's Liverpool is going to be built on intensity in waves, and on the opening day it took until the 99th minute for that to be worth a point. Liverpool host Nottingham Forest on Saturday morning. Newcastle go to Tottenham the same afternoon.
