Newcastle and Liverpool played out a thrilling 2-2 draw at St James' Park, with goals from Anthony Elanga and Dominik Szoboszlai, in an emotional tribute to Kevin Keegan.
Elanga breaks drought
William Osula set Anthony Elanga away, slightly right of centre and just short of 50,000 draw collective breaths. Pace is no issue; Elanga has no shortage of that, and Milos Kerkez won't catch him. Elanga took a touch, a tad heavier than ideal but it pushed the ball away from Alisson. A moment of composure followed and Newcastle led.
An entirely goalless league season passed after Elanga's £55m transfer from Nottingham Forest and now, within five minutes of a new one, his drought is broken. Elanga missed a much easier opportunity against Aston Villa on the 2025-26 opening day, and his confidence never recovered.
Late penalty drama
Nearly two hours later, there remained just a few precious seconds for Liverpool to salvage something. Victor Muñoz was brought down clumsily by Lewis Hall. Dominik Szoboszlai converted the resulting penalty to make it 2-2.
Muñoz apparently gave Newcastle positive noises about joining them during summer. Then, in a flexing of financial muscle, Liverpool met the Osasuna forward's release clause and to Anfield he went.
A fitting tribute
Those two goals bookended an afternoon that was, a fitting tribute to the recently departed Kevin Keegan. Entertaining but flawed. Shortly before kick-off everyone present paid an emotional tribute to him.
With Liverpool, Keegan's seven trophies in six years – including three titles and the European Cup – set the club up to be the behemoth they now are. Across three spells at Newcastle, he jabbed syringes of hope into a flailing, helpless shell.
St James' Park is not quite the house that Keegan built, but it is no stretch to say it is the house built because of him. Without his steering Newcastle to Second Division safety in 1992 as manager, the club in its current guise might not exist.
Promising signs
There were promising signs for Liverpool's Andoni Iraola. Jérémy Jacquet grew into his debut. Cody Gakpo had only just whipped a strike narrowly off target before his fine equaliser just after half-time. Rio Ngumoha was quiet but that he has impressed sufficiently to start the season opener is itself a plus.
But there were familiar failings, too. The full-backs looked shaky and Iraola needs more from both the sums and the whole of the £241m Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak combo. Isak is about as popular in Newcastle as government-mandated balaclava wearing in a heatwave would be, but the stick-cum-abuse he received didn't seem to bother him. A skied left-footed effort was the closest he came to silencing the heckles.
Newcastle's Matthias Jaissle is likely to get more slack. A midfield pair sold for north of £180m were replaced on Sunday by a double pivot with a combined aged of 38 and less than 50 league starts. Lewis Miley and Sean Steur looked the part but made mistakes. That they did so seeking the positive option will only endear them to fans. As will more similar performances from Yoane Wissa.
A decent start. Room for improvement. Apply that to both sides.
