Ipswich Town v Liverpool: what the stats say

Ipswich Town’s most recent Premier League game was in May 2002 against Liverpool at Anfield, losing 5-0 as they were relegated. Since then, the two sides have only faced once, a 1-1 draw in the League Cup in December 2002 before the Tractor Boys lost 5-4 on penalties.

Liverpool have never lost a Premier League match at Portman Road against Ipswich Town (P5 W3 D2), with their last visit a 6-0 win in February 2002. They’ve played more games there without losing than any other ground in the Premier League.

Ipswich Town are unbeaten in their opening league match of the season in each of the last 10 seasons (W6 D4) since losing 2-1 to Reading in the Championship in 2013-14.

For the fifth time in the last six seasons, Liverpool begin their Premier League season with a match against a newly promoted side (W3 D1 previously). They are unbeaten on MD1 in their last 11 seasons (W8 D3) since losing 3-0 to West Brom in 2012-13 in Brendan Rodgers’ first game in charge.

Between December and February in their last Premier League campaign of 2001-02, Ipswich had a run of seven wins in eight games (L1) which moved them to 12th in the table. However, following that run they won just one of their last 13 matches (D3 L9), and were ultimately relegated.

Only Stockport County (96) and Manchester City (96) scored more league goals than Ipswich Town in England’s top four tiers last season (92). Indeed, since Kieran McKenna took charge of the club for the first time in December 2021, only Man City (239) have scored more league goals than the Tractor Boys (222).

Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna will be the 16th manager whose first ever Premier League game in charge comes in a match against Liverpool. Just four of the previous 15 have won (D4 L7), with Brian Clough (1992), John Gregory (1998), Paul Sturrock (2004) and Craig Shakespeare (2017) doing so.

 This will be Arne Slot’s first game in charge of Liverpool. Only one of the eight managers to take charge of the Reds in the Premier League have won their first such game (D4 L3), with Gérard Houllier beating Southampton while jointly in charge with Roy Evans in August 1998. Houllier, however, lost his first game in sole charge of the club (vs Leeds in November 1998).

This will be the first time two managers (Ipswich’s Kieran McKenna and Liverpool’s Arne Slot) are taking charge of their first ever Premier League match in a game against each other since David Wagner’s Huddersfield beat Frank De Boer’s Crystal Palace 3-0 in August 2017.

No player in Premier League history has scored more goals on MD1 than Liverpool’s Mo Salah (8, level with Alan Shearer, Frank Lampard, and Wayne Rooney), while only Wayne Rooney (13 – 8 goals, 5 assists) has more goal involvements on the opening matchday in the competition than the Egyptian (12 – 8 goals, 4 assists).

© OPTA