4 things we learned from Liverpool’s opening day win at Ipswich

Liverpool began the Arne Slot era with a 2-0 win at newly-promoted Ipswich Town on the opening weekend of the Premier League season.

Though Jurgen Klopp is long gone from the dugout, the Reds were thrust into another early kick-off to begin the new campaign, but they didn’t let that stop them in their tracks.

Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah came up with the all-important goals at Portman Road, where the Tractor Boys put up a decent fight but fell at the feet of a fine second-half performance from their visitors.

Here’s what we learned from Liverpool’s first win of the season.

Thankfully for Arne Slot, he shuffled away from the opening-day banana skin which has felled so many of his predecessors.

None of Jurgen Klopp, Brendan Rodgers, Kenny Dalglish (the most recent stint), Roy Hodgson or Rafa Benitez won their first competitive game in charge of Liverpool. Yep, that’s correct.

The last new manager to do so was Gerard Houllier all the way back in 1998, making Slot the first Reds boss of the 21st century to get off to a perfect start.

Perhaps this isn’t all about Slot though, as he is the only manager on this list to have walked into a decent enough situation to actually win at the first attempt. Instead, maybe this shows how far Liverpool have come to re-establishing themselves as one of Europe’s truly elite clubs.

Boy, we’re really running out of ways to praise the extensive greatness of Mohamed Salah.

The Egyptian King wrapped up the points for Liverpool with their second goal of Saturday afternoon, and in doing so hit a new landmark for the Reds.

Salah made his 350th appearance for the club at Portman Road, and racked up his 300th goal contribution – 212 goals plus 88 assists – to mark the occasion.

That is ludicrous. Ludicrous.

Upon Slot’s arrival at Anfield, a lot of emphasis was put on how he could get the best out of Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo, who have shown only glimpses of their full potential since moving to Liverpool.

But the Dutchman gave Diogo Jota the starting centre-forward role for the opening game of the season, and he was not made to regret that decision.

Jota broke the deadlock minutes after spurning a headed chance that you would’ve backed him to finish 99 times out of 100.

It was a nice and timely reminder that, besides Salah, Jota is the most reliable finisher in the Liverpool squad and…