Ipswich Town were beaten by Liverpool – but this is why they shouldn’t lose heart

For a club playing their first Premier League match since 2002, this was a glorious day for Ipswich Town, regardless of the eventual result against Liverpool.

It felt perfect: vintage opening-day-of-the-season weather and a home game against one of the Premier League’s big boys — the side who defeated Ipswich 5-0 on their last Premier League appearance, 22 years ago.

Visiting a promoted Premier League club on the opening weekend is a wonderful sensory overload. There’s the wave of freshly bought home kits complete with the Premier League logo on the sleeve. There’s the smell of fresh paint everywhere around the ground. There are the audible groans for VAR checks and delayed offside flags, a novel experience for supporters accustomed to life in the English Football League.

And before the break, Ipswich competed well, taking an aggressive starting position and launching quick counter-attacks that should have produced better chances. After it, however, they were outplayed by a Liverpool side offering superior individual quality.

Kieran McKenna’s system is familiar from his approach in previous seasons and is built around the strengths of his key players — or, perhaps, key player.

Leif Davis could become an England international, especially given the national side’s weakness at left-back during Euro 2024. Davis recorded the most assists in League One two years ago and the most assists in the Championship last season. He made two Premier League appearances as a substitute at Leeds United four seasons ago but this is his first proper crack at the big time.

Ipswich’s system could, therefore, be compared to the Italy side that won Euro 2020, when Leonardo Spinazzola was tasked with covering the entire left flank by himself. Davis is a left-back without the ball and a left-sided forward in the attacking phase. Omari Hutchinson, playing from the left, becomes an extra central attacking midfielder.

In a wider sense, Ipswich use a back four, two combative holding midfielders in front of the defence who get tight to opponents, and then a narrow group of four attackers who press centrally and deny the opposition playing through midfield, seeking to force the play out wide. If Ipswich’s first job was to disrupt Liverpool’s passing, they did that commendably, particularly in how they quickly shut down Dominik Szoboszlai, deployed as Liverpool’s No 10, with centre-backs jumping out of the defence.

Liverpool tried to play long balls in behind Ipswich’s high line towards Mohamed Salah. Those raking passes were a feature of the first half, forcing goalkeeper Christian Walton to sweep on a couple of occasions. It was also perhaps a deliberate ploy considering Davis’ advanced positioning. This was a serious test for the left-back against Salah, the most prolific Premier League scorer currently playing in the division (157 goals at the start of the day).

In the first half, Davis coped well. He usually had the speed to match the Egyptian’s runs in behind and he made a couple of well-timed tackles in one-against-one situations. His advanced positioning means he has to retreat a long way when Ipswich lose possession but this only caused problems once before half-time, and even then, Salah miscontrolled Luis Diaz’s pass.

Remaining solid for merely half a game, however, isn’t quite good enough against world-class opposition and Liverpool opened the scoring on the hour mark with that same approach play: Trent Alexander-Arnold took advantage of centre-back Jacob Greaves getting too tight to Szoboszlai, leaving a gap in defence, and threaded the ball through for Salah, making a run on the outside of Davis, who forlornly appealed for offside. A simple square pass and an even simpler Diogo Jota finish made it 1-0.

Diogo Jota broke Ipswich’s resistance (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

And while the goal wasn’t quite ‘coming’, if there was to be one, you could be sure it would come from that type of ball in behind to Salah. “Ipswich took the risk to play one-v-one across the pitch — their centre-back always came up to Szoboszlai and left three against three in defence,” said Arne Slot afterwards. “We had to find the attackers with direct passes in behind.”

Alexander-Arnold played a similar ball for Salah a minute later, although this came to nothing, and then five minutes later Liverpool put the game to bed with another long pass to Salah. Virgil van Dijk’s trademark drifted diagonal pass found him on the run outside Davis. Salah then swapped passes with Szoboszlai, with Davis only half-intercepting the return ball and Salah made it 158 Premier League goals.

This Ipswich starting XI, on the other hand, had zero Premier League goals between them. Ten of their players were starting a top-flight game for the first time. Their organisation was impressive, but a lack of class was clear. Several counter-attacking opportunities were not exploited quickly enough.

“It’s just our execution, we had some big moments when we were breaking through the pitch — the timing of the pass, the weight of the pass, the timing of the supporting run,” said McKenna. “If we’d have got those elements better we would have had a couple of big chances. That’s the challenge, developing our execution under big fatigue, because the intensity is very high, so there’s more fatigue than the players will ever have had before, with better defenders facing you. If we’d improved that, the scoreline could have been better at half-time.”

Leif Davis was kept busy by Liverpool (Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)

Three first-half yellow cards also suggested that, at times, the pace was too quick for Ipswich when they tried to press — they got bypassed and were forced into cynical fouls or desperate lunges. Overall, more individual quality is needed. This week’s new signings, Kalvin Phillips and last season’s Championship top scorer Sammie Szmodics, should help when they are ready to start but improvement from the players who started the game will be even more useful. Given their inexperience and McKenna’s coaching ability, there is plenty of room for progress.

Things don’t get easier for Ipswich — next weekend features a trip to Manchester City — but really, these games won’t define their season. Luton Town rightly received rave reviews for going toe-to-toe with the big boys last season, but they didn’t pick up victories in those games, and were often surprisingly meek against fellow bottom-half sides.

If Ipswich can replicate their first-half performance here against less daunting opponents, and sustain it deeper into games, they could prove very difficult to beat at Portman Road.

(Top photo: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)