Before kick-off a banner was raised in the Gallowgate End inscribed with a quotation from the late Kevin Keegan. “I want people to dream about their football,” it read. “We should all be dreamers at heart.”
Out on the pitch it swiftly became apparent that both Matthias Jaissle, Keegan’s latest successor in the Newcastle dugout, and Liverpool’s new manager Andoni Iraola are on individual missions to create forms of organised chaos capable of subjecting the best opponents to torrid nightmares.
Despite a few, ultimately forlorn, attempts to introduce semblances of control on the parts of the visiting playmaker Florian Wirtz and Newcastle’s elegant central midfielder Lewis Miley, this was sheer, unadulterated, mutual mayhem of the sort to make Iraola’s more purist Anfield predecessor Arne Slot wince.
Along the way to a draw secured, perhaps slightly fortuitously, by Dominik Szoboszlai’s 99th-minute penalty for Liverpool, the returning former Newcastle striker Alexander Isak left minimal imprint on a match that had been supposed to be all about him. Instead Isak was upstaged by Jaissle’s forward William Osula.
No sooner had the heartfelt tributes to Keegan, a player and manager adored by both clubs, been completed it very quickly became apparent that Jérémy Jacquet and Virgil van Dijk had no answers to Osula as the young Dane turned and accelerated towards goal following Ryan Gravenberch’s inexplicable surrender of possession.
The stage was set for this most unpredictable of strikers to spot Anthony Elanga, then in the process of leaving Milos Kerkez for dust down the right, slide a pass in the winger’s direction and watch as, a steadying touch later, Elanga’s shot flashed beyond Alisson’s reach.
Only five minutes had passed, Jaissle’s tenure as Newcastle’s manager was off to perfect start and already Iraola looked distinctly stressed.
His defence did not convince, with Kerkez finding few answers to Elanga. Like Jaissle, Iraola is a high priest of pressing but Liverpool’s best hope here seemed to be to retain possession, impose their technical superiority and out-pass Newcastle.
Significantly their best moments coincided largely with those albeit sporadic occasions when Wirtz –who would be withdrawn midway through the second half – managed to get on the ball and began unnerving a Newcastle side supposedly in the throes of a dramatic transition.
It is only three weeks since Jaissle succeeded Eddie Howe but the former Al-Ahli manager has certainly succeeded in not merely re-energising a mentally jaded team but sharpening a swarm pressing game that had become more than a little half hearted and untidy. “The manager is top,” said Elanga. “Playing for him is fun.”
Given that Jaissle has inherited a team shorn of last season’s luminaries – Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães – this achievement was all the more impressive. The 38-year-old German trusted 18-year-old Sean Steur, recently arrived from Ajax, alongside Miley in the key holding roles in his 4-2-3-1 system and for long periods they held their own.
Behind them, Malick Thiaw and Sven Botman excelled in central defence while Amar Dedic shone at right-back following his £30m move from Benfica.
There are ways to leave a football club but the route Isak chose – mounting a one-man strike before forcing a record £125m move to Liverpool last summer – ensured he was greeted by chants of “rat, rat, rat,” as he alighted from the visiting team bus.
If Isak seemed quite unconcerned – he grinned broadly in the face of some further sustained hostility before kick-off – the Sweden striker added to Iraola’s problems by miscuing his sole chance of an alarmingly anonymous afternoon. Instead it was a forward facing an uncertain future at Anfield who kept Liverpool in it. When Jaissle’s midfield inexplicably stood off him Cody Gakpo’s first time shot from outside the area defied Lukas Hornicek.
With Osula now limping, on came Joe Willock for Newcastle leaving the impressive Yoane Wissa – arguably man of the match – to shift from the No 10 to No 9 role. Willock is reportedly close to joining Besiktas but delighted in immediately offering a reminder of his enduring worth on Tyneside.
When Wissa, rather wonderfully, dodged three supposed markers his ensuing pass to Willock was superbly calibrated and the latter returned the compliment by curling a shot past Alisson and in off a post. Tellingly, Willock was mobbed by every outfield teammate with Nick Woltemade and his fellow home substitutes racing the length of the pitch to congratulate him.
Low on creativity, Liverpool seemed beaten until deep in injury time the substitute Victor Muñoz was felled when the otherwise convincing Newcastle left-back Lewis Hall rather unluckily caught his knee in the penalty area.
All that remained was for Szoboszlai to lash his ensuing penalty high into the roof of the net and level a game as swashbuckling as anything even Keegan might have conjured.
