Liverpool has invested heavily ahead of this season and, among other things, brought in the German national player Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen and Hugo Ekitike from Frankfurt.
The latter proved to be a good investment directly. 37 minutes into his Premier League debut, the 22-year-old managed to get loose, get free with the goalkeeper and easily shoot in 1–0 for the red-clad.
Interrupted after racist attacks
After just over 30 minutes, the game was paused by referee Anthony Taylor. The Premier League confirmed on X that the reason for the interruption was that the away team's Antoine Semenyo reported being subjected to racist attacks from someone in the audience. After a few minutes, the match resumed.
The same Semenyo then got to open the goal scoring for the season when he hit the reduction, 1–2, in the middle of the second half.
But the Ghanaian national player was not finished there.
With a quarter of the match left, he got the ball on his own half, drove it quickly all the way to Liverpool's penalty area, where he fired a heavy shot low into the goalkeeper's left corner to 2–2.
It was still Liverpool who would have the last word. The Italian Federico Chiesa, who got barely any playing time last season, put in the leading goal with just a few minutes left of the match after the ball bounced around in the penalty area after an entry.
Mohamed Salah then fixed the final result, 4–2, in stoppage time.
Emotional tributes
Before and during the match, the deceased Liverpool player Diogo Jota was hailed by the audience and the two teams. Before kick-off, a minute's silence was held at the same time as a large tifo with the text "DJ20" and "AS30" was held up. On a large banner, it said "Rute, Dinis, Duerte, Mafalda – Anfield will always be your home", a greeting to Diogo's widow and the couple's three children.
Liverpool striker Jota and his brother André both died in a car accident in Spain on July 3.
