UP NEXT: Newcastle United vs Liverpool β Premier League, St James’ Park, Sunday 23 August, 4:30pm BST
There is something almost poetic about the way the Premier League calendar has arranged itself this year, because before a ball is even kicked, before the first whistle sounds around St James’ Park on Sunday afternoon, this fixture already feels like it is carrying more weight than a standard Matchweek One appointment. Newcastle United hosting Liverpool would always be a box office occasion on the opening weekend regardless of context, given the history between these two clubs and the sheer scale of noise that St James’ Park generates whenever the red half of Merseyside rolls into town. But this year the context is impossible to ignore. This is <cite index=”7-1″>one of the standout fixtures of the opening weekend as Newcastle United welcome Liverpool to St James’ Park</cite>, and it also happens to be the first competitive match of a brand new managerial era at Anfield, with Andoni Iraola taking his seat in the away dugout for a Premier League game that matters for the very first time.
For Liverpool supporters, the appointment of Iraola has been one of the more fascinating storylines of the summer. Here is a manager who built his reputation at Rayo Vallecano before turning Bournemouth into one of the most stylistically distinctive sides in the country, a team that pressed with real intensity, played out from the back under pressure, and consistently punched above its transfer budget. Now he inherits a Liverpool squad that is simultaneously one of the most talented in the division and one that is still working out exactly what its identity should look like after a summer of change. Expectations at Anfield never really dip, whoever is in the technical area, and Iraola will already understand that a positive result on Tyneside would go a long way to settling any early nerves among the fanbase and, just as importantly, inside his own dressing room.
It would be easy to write about this game purely in the abstract, all tactics and shape and philosophy, but the human story running through the middle of it is impossible to separate from the occasion. Alexander Isak will walk out at St James’ Park this weekend wearing red rather than black and white, and however that afternoon plays out, it is going to be an emotional one. Isak spent years becoming a cult hero on Tyneside, the kind of forward who could turn a half chance into a moment of real quality with almost no backlift, and his departure will not have been forgotten by a crowd that adored him. <cite index=”13-1″>The match falls on the same weekend Isak returns to St James’ Park in Liverpool colours, adding a deeply personal storyline to a fixture that already carries plenty of sporting significance</cite>. Whatever noise greets him when his name is read out, and whatever happens if he finds the net, this is exactly the kind of subplot that turns a routine August fixture into box office.
Eddie Howe, for his part, arrives at this one under a slightly different kind of pressure. Newcastle’s transfer business this summer has been a genuine talking point, and not always for comfortable reasons if you are of a black and white persuasion. Losing key figures from the middle of the pitch and the front line in the same window is never straightforward to absorb, and there is a sense that Newcastle are entering this campaign with more questions hanging over the squad than they have carried into a season for some time. None of that changes the demands of a home crowd that has grown used to seeing this team compete with the very best sides in the country, and St James’ Park under the lights, or in this case under a Sunday afternoon sun in front of a full house, remains one of the most intimidating environments any visiting team can walk into. Howe has built his reputation on getting his sides to play with a controlled aggression, pressing high up the pitch in bursts and using the crowd as an extra body on the pitch, and there is no reason to think Sunday will be any different in terms of approach, even if the players available to execute that approach look a little different to twelve months ago.
Tactically, this has the makings of a genuinely fascinating watch, not just a loud one. Iraola’s sides have always been built around aggressive pressing triggers and a willingness to play through pressure rather than around it, and the early signs from Liverpool’s preseason suggest he is not interested in diluting that identity just because he has inherited a squad built under a different manager. That is a bold approach to bring to St James’ Park of all places, a stadium where teams that try to play out from the back under sustained pressure have come unstuck before. Newcastle’s front line, whatever its exact configuration ends up being on the day, will be well drilled in exactly how to squeeze a goalkeeper and a back four into uncomfortable positions, and if Liverpool are committed to playing Iraola’s way from minute one, there is a version of this game where Newcastle’s press causes real problems in the opening exchanges.
At the same time, Liverpool’s attacking talent is not something that disappears just because there is a new voice giving instructions from the touchline. Mohamed Salah remains one of the most relentlessly productive forwards English football has seen in the modern era, a player whose numbers season after season border on the absurd, and whatever system Iraola settles on, it would be a surprise if it did not find a way to get the ball into dangerous areas for Salah to do what he does. Around him there is a blend of proven Premier League quality and exciting younger talent, and the sense heading into this weekend is that Liverpool’s attacking ceiling remains extremely high even if the collective understanding of a new manager’s ideas is still very much a work in progress at this early stage of the season.
Newcastle’s own attacking threat should not be underestimated either, even with the summer departures factored in. Anthony Gordon’s pace and directness in behind will be missed if he is unavailable or still adapting elsewhere, but Harvey Barnes offers a similar profile of player capable of running in behind a high line, and Bruno GuimarΓ£es remains one of the most complete central midfielders in the Premier League, someone who can dictate tempo, break up opposition attacks, and arrive late into the box to score important goals. Nick Woltemade’s introduction to Newcastle’s forward line adds another dimension up top, a focal point capable of holding the ball up and bringing others into play, which could prove valuable if Newcastle are forced to play more direct football against a Liverpool side determined to press and dominate territory.
Team news is going to matter a great deal in a fixture as finely poised as this one looks on paper. Newcastle have had fitness concerns to manage in the build-up, with question marks hanging over key defensive personnel heading into the weekend, which is far from ideal against an attack containing the level of quality Liverpool can call upon. Losing experienced defensive options at any stage of a campaign is unwelcome, but losing them in the very first game of the season, before any kind of rhythm has been established, adds an extra layer of difficulty for Howe’s coaching staff as they finalise their approach. Liverpool have their own list of absentees to work around too, which is a reminder that no matter how the transfer market treats a club over the summer, the challenge of fielding a fully fit strongest eleven in August is one that touches every squad in the division to some degree.
There is also the small matter of history between these two clubs, and it is a history that leans, on balance, in Liverpool’s favour. Head to head records over the years have tended to favour the Merseyside club, and recent meetings have produced some genuinely dramatic football, matches packed with goals at both ends and momentum swinging back and forth in a way that has made this fixture must watch television more often than not. That kind of recent form between the sides only adds to the anticipation, because there is little reason to expect a cagey, cautious afternoon when these two clubs get together. If the pattern of recent encounters holds, Sunday has every chance of being an open, end to end contest rather than a tightly controlled tactical stalemate, which suits neither manager’s comfort zone but almost certainly suits the neutral watching at home or in the stadium.
For Liverpool fans specifically, there is a particular kind of anticipation attached to watching a new head coach take his team out for the first time in a competitive fixture. Preseason friendlies can tell you something about fitness levels and give hints about shape, but they rarely tell you much about how a team will actually behave when three points are genuinely on the line, in a hostile away ground, against a well organised opponent with something to prove. Sunday will be the first real data point of the Iraola era, the first chance to see how his ideas translate when the intensity is turned all the way up and the crowd noise is doing everything it can to unsettle the visiting side. Every new manager talks a good game in press conferences during the summer, all about identity and philosophy and the way they want their team to play, but St James’ Park on the opening weekend of a new season is about as demanding a first real examination as English football can offer.
There is also a symbolic element to Liverpool opening this new chapter away from home, at a ground where they have not always found things easy, rather than in the comfort of Anfield with the home support behind them from the first whistle. Some supporters might have preferred a gentler introduction for a new manager, a home fixture against less imposing opposition to settle any nerves before the tougher tests arrive. Instead, Iraola gets thrown straight into one of the toughest atmospheres in the country, against a manager in Howe who has consistently got the better of bigger name opponents by matching organisation with intensity. If Liverpool can go to St James’ Park on the opening weekend and come away with anything meaningful, whether that is a hard fought win or even a battling draw, it would send an early signal that this squad has bought into the new manager’s methods far quicker than some might have expected.
The occasion itself deserves a mention too, separate from all the tactical and narrative threads running through it. Opening weekend of the Premier League season carries its own unique energy regardless of the specific fixtures on the card, that sense of a long summer finally giving way to the thing everyone has actually been waiting for. Add in a ground like St James’ Park, which does not need any extra encouragement to be loud, and a visiting club whose travelling support will make themselves heard no matter where they are playing, and Sunday afternoon has all the ingredients of a proper football occasion. Kick off at 4:30pm BST means a full day of build up beforehand, plenty of time for the pundits and former players to have their say about what a new era at Liverpool might look like, and plenty of time for Newcastle fans to work themselves into the kind of state that makes their home ground so difficult for visiting teams to handle.
From a purely footballing perspective, the questions heading into Sunday are genuinely open ones rather than formalities. Can Newcastle’s remaining core of experienced Premier League operators paper over the gaps left by summer departures for at least one afternoon against a Liverpool side still finding its feet under a new coach? Can Iraola get his attacking players pressing and combining with anything close to the fluency his previous sides showed, in only his first competitive match in the job, against one of the most difficult away venues in world football? Does Isak’s emotional return end up defined by a moment of quality that turns the game, or does the occasion prove too much even for a player of his composure? These are not questions with obvious answers, and that uncertainty is precisely what makes this fixture worth clearing your Sunday afternoon for.
Whatever happens over the ninety minutes, and however the story of the afternoon eventually gets told, this feels like exactly the kind of fixture the Premier League calendar makers must have been hoping for when they lined up opening weekend. Two big clubs, two managers under scrutiny in very different ways, a returning forward carrying real emotional weight, and a stadium that will not need reminding of just how much this one matters. St James’ Park has hosted its fair share of memorable afternoons against Liverpool down the years, and there is every reason to think Sunday adds another chapter to that story, one way or another.
So here we are, on the eve of a new season, with Newcastle United and Liverpool set to open the Premier League calendar in front of a sold out St James’ Park. Eddie Howe will be looking for his side to draw on the raw energy of a home crowd to paper over the uncertainty of a summer of departures, while Andoni Iraola takes his first competitive steps in English football’s toughest test of nerve and identity, away from home, against a manager who has made a career out of causing problems for bigger clubs. Alexander Isak returns to the stage where he made his name, only this time in opposition colours, carrying a storyline that no scriptwriter could have planned any better. Kick off is 4:30pm BST on Sunday 23 August. Whatever else this season ends up bringing for either club, the opening chapter promises to be one worth watching from start to finish.
Come on you Reds!