Liverpool Salvages Draw Against Newcastle in Late Drama
At St James’ Park last August, Liverpool walked out with bedlam ringing in their ears and Rio Ngumoha’s 100th-minute winner etched into the away end’s memory. Same fixture, same late drama this time – but a very different feeling.
Dominik Szoboszlai’s 99th-minute penalty didn’t spark euphoria. It felt like a long exhale. A point salvaged. Nerves soothed, not hearts set racing.
Andoni Iraola called it right afterwards. His Liverpool side did not deserve to lose, and they refused to accept it, clawing their way to a 2-2 draw having trailed twice in a ferocious atmosphere on Tyneside.
A defeat would have been Liverpool’s first opening-weekend loss since 2012-13. The draw keeps that record intact and will stiffen belief in Iraola’s methods, but it also underlined how much work lies ahead.
“We definitely deserve this point and even more,” Iraola told BBC Radio 5 Live. “The team has never given up and we’ve recovered one point and probably the taste is better because we score in the last minute.”
Relief, yes. Reassurance, not quite.
Big stage, bigger questions
Iraola will board the flight back to Merseyside satisfied with the result, but the performance will nag at him. It exposed the thinness of his squad and the fragility of a side expected to challenge at the top.
“You’re expecting Liverpool to get top four this season at least but they didn’t look like a top four team today,” former Scotland winger Pat Nevin said on 5 Live.
He’s right to point to the caveat: there are more signings to come, so any verdict on Liverpool’s season is premature. But the issues were plain.
“There’s a definite lack of creativity,” Nevin added, “and somehow they must get the best out of Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak because you certainly didn’t get the best out of them today.”
All eyes had been on those two. Isak, prised from Newcastle in a long, fraught saga last September, was booed relentlessly every time he touched the ball. He looked up for the fight, racking up 28 touches, but when the big moment came in the second half, he squandered a chance he routinely buried in black and white.
Wirtz started brightly, drifting into pockets and offering hints of why Liverpool paid a nine-figure fee. But as Newcastle went 2-1 up, his influence waned and he was withdrawn just after the hour.
Both marquee signings know the truth: for those price tags, “promising” won’t cut it. Their link-up, their final ball, their end product – all of it must sharpen, and quickly.
For now, this is still a Liverpool side that throws up more questions than answers.
The Gakpo dilemma and a thin bench
Front and centre among those questions sits Cody Gakpo. His future will dominate the final week of the transfer window.
If Liverpool land the two attacking players they want, Gakpo may be the one to make way. The club have been heavily linked with Paris St-Germain’s Bradley Barcola and Ibrahim Mbaye, and they have already seen two bids turned down for Brighton’s Yankuba Minteh.
Yet at St James’ Park, Gakpo was Liverpool’s standout performer. He took his goal superbly, showing the composure and cutting edge others lacked. On this evidence, letting him go would be a gamble.
There was another bright spot. Spanish forward Victor Munoz, on debut, came off the bench and changed the tone of the final stages. He won the late penalty that Szoboszlai buried, a burst of direct running that Newcastle simply couldn’t handle in stoppage time.
His introduction, though, came at the expense of Ngumoha – and that substitution told its own story.
Ngumoha, who turns 18 next week, had written his own fairytale here a year ago. This time he laboured. Deployed on the right, away from his preferred left flank where he has grown up tormenting full-backs, he never found rhythm. Iraola hooked him just over an hour in, a clear sign the experiment misfired on the day.
Iraola wants wingers who can operate on both sides. Whether Ngumoha’s education in that role continues once more attackers arrive is another matter.
Look at the bench after Munoz and Alexis Mac Allister came on in the 63rd minute and the lack of depth jumps out. What remained: Giorgi Mamardashvili, Ronald Araujo, Wataru Endo, Kostas Tsimikas, Trey Nyoni, James McConnell and Lewis Koumas.
Energetic, honest players, some with big potential. But for a club chasing Champions League football, it is not a bench that strikes fear.
Iraola needs more options. Urgently.
Exposed on the break
If the attacking conundrum is complex, the defensive problem is brutally simple.
Liverpool were cut apart on the counter for both goals. Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong endured torrid afternoons at full-back, repeatedly caught high and wide as Newcastle broke into the space behind.
The absence of a specialist defensive midfielder loomed large. Once Joe Willock swept Newcastle into a 2-1 lead, Iraola’s response was revealing: Mac Allister dropped in just ahead of the back four, tasked with knitting things together and closing the gaps that had been yawning all game.
The numbers are damning. Since the start of last season, no Premier League team has conceded more goals from fast breaks in all competitions than Liverpool’s nine. It isn’t an anomaly. It’s a pattern.
Iraola, who prefers to let the dust settle and hold his debrief the day after a match, will not need long with the video to see it.
Energy, edge – and a warning
For all that, this was no disaster for the new manager. There was plenty he liked, and he said so.
“I’ve liked a lot of the things I’ve seen from the team,” he insisted. “There’s definitely things to improve like the goals but I’ve seen a lot of things I’ve liked from the team. I’ve liked the energy, especially the players coming from the bench. I think we finished the game quite strong physically.”
Szoboszlai, the man who held his nerve in the 99th minute, echoed that mentality.
“We will never give up. I can guarantee you that,” he told Sky Sports. “We have to fight every time – all day long during the 90 minutes. Everybody who came off the bench also made an impact as well. We need the whole squad and we need to be ready.”
Desire, attitude, late drama – those boxes are ticked. They always have been on Tyneside.
But the Premier League is unforgiving. Spirit alone will not drag Liverpool into the top four. Iraola needs quality, he needs numbers, and he needs them quickly.
The question now is simple: will the club move fast enough in the market to match the urgency his players showed in the 99th minute?
