Amid the excitement of Euro 2024, the 2024-25 Premier League fixtures were quietly released and they revealed that Liverpool will take on newly promoted Ipswich at Portman Road on the opening weekend.
The Reds are embarking upon a new era, with Jurgen Klopp having left the club following nine successful seasons in charge. Former Feyenoord boss Arne Slot has replaced the outgoing German and he begins his top flight tenure with a potentially tricky visit to Suffolk. With games against Brentford and Manchester United to follow, the 45-year old will be aiming to get off to a successful start, and the bookmakers have already priced up the visitors as the 2/5 favourites to head back to Merseyside with all three points.
Slot has huge shoes to fill and he will be keen to win over the Anfield faithful as quickly as possible. We may be several weeks away from this game getting underway and there is still plenty of transfer activity to be completed, yet the large majority of sports betting sites such as 10Bet and 888Sport have already compiled their outright Premier League odds, making Liverpool third favourites for the Premier League title behind holders Manchester City and runners-up Arsenal.
We’ve taken an early look at the statistics and this will hopefully give us an indication of how Slot’s men might fare in this lunchtime kick off.
Opening Day Statistics
Liverpool were pegged back on the opening day of the 2023-24 season with Luis Diaz’s opener cancelled out by Chelsea’s Axel Disasi. It was the second successive season in which the Reds have failed to take all three points from their curtain raiser and they’ll be aiming to end that unwanted sequence this time around.
They’ve won just two of their last five opening PL fixtures; both of which came against Norwich City. You have to go back to the start of the 2012-13 campaign to find the last time that they were defeated in their opener. Steve Clarke’s West Brom proved too smart for an insipid Reds’ outfit who struggled under new boss Brendan Rodgers. In this instance, they had started their campaign two weeks earlier with back-to-back Europa League qualifiers against Belarus’ Gomel, yet this was a truly disastrous start to a campaign in which they won just 46% of their matches.
Opening Day Statistics across the last 12 seasons:
W8 D3 L1
BTTS YES 7
BTTS NO 5
Over 2.5 Goals 9
Under 2.5 Goals 3
Just three of Liverpool’s eight opening day victories have been clinched by more than a single goal margin and the Reds have managed to find the net in each of their last 11.
Record vs Newly Promoted Sides
Last season, Liverpool had a pretty impressive record against newly promoted outfits. They dropped just two points across their six fixtures with newcomers, only failing to pick up maximum points at Kenilworth Road at the beginning of November.
Curiously, they failed to keep a clean sheet when hosting all three newly promoted sides, winning 3-1, 4-1 and 3-1. Nevertheless, away from home they kept things extremely tight. The Reds triumphed 2-0 at Turf Moor and were victorious by the same scoreline when visiting Bramall Lane at the beginning of a hectic festive period.
Record vs newly promoted sides 2023-24:
W5 D1 L0
GF 15 GA 4
Liverpool have a tendency to be drawn against newly promoted sides on the opening weekend of the season. The last time this happened was in 2022-23 when they dropped points against a lively Fulham outfit. Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic proved to be a thorn in the side of the Reds’ defence all afternoon.
They found it far easier twelve months earlier as they eased past newly-promoted Norwich City at Carrow Road. They were also involved in a wonderfully absorbing contest against Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United to kick off the 2020-21 campaign. Mo Salah’s hat-trick helped to secure a topsy-turvy 4-3 success at Anfield.
Liverpool have faced newly promoted sides in four of the last five seasons and their record is pretty impressive:
W3 D1
GF 13 GA6
Over 2.5 4
Under 2.5 0
Arne Slot’s Record
This is just Arne Slot’s third full-time senior management role with the highly-rated Dutchman having also been in charge at AZ Alkmaar and Feyenoord.
His first domestic game in charge of AZ resulted in a routine 4-0 victory over Fortuna Sittard whereas his opening fixture of the 2020-21 campaign ended 1-1.
Across his 148 games at De Kuip, he averaged 2.15 points per game and began the 2021-22 season with a 4-0 victory over Willem II. The following season, Feyenoord were 5-2 winners over Vitesse, however, the 2023-24 campaign got off to an uninspiring start with a 0-0 draw against Fortuna Sittard.
Arne Slot’s Opening Day Record:
W2 D2
GF 10 GA 3
Over 2.5 goals 2
Under 2.5 Goals 2
A visit to Ipswich will be far from a straightforward task. It is a potentially tricky start for the new incumbent, yet Liverpool’s opening day record should breed positivity.
If you’re planning to have a bet on this fixture, then it would be wise to back plenty of goals as we are expecting chances at both ends of the pitch. The Reds tend to prevail by single goal margins in these types of contests, so backing a narrow away victory with BTTS and Over 2.5 Goals looks to be the best option based on the statistics.