Liverpool survived a dramatic Premier League opener at Anfield, salvaging victory with late goals from Federico Chiesa and Mohamed Salah after relinquishing a 2-0 advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hosts took an early lead through competition-debutant Hugo Ekitike, who finished from close range after Alexis Mac Allister\u2019s pass and a fortuitous deflection off Marcos Senesi. New signing Ekitike had taken the first shot of the match in the third minute, and his celebration, showing the number 20 with both hands, paid clear tribute to the man whose position he now occupies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not five minutes into the second half, Cody Gakpo added a composed second. He jinked past Marcus Tavernier before placing a precise finish from inside the area and replicated Ekitike\u2019s tribute to the same memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bournemouth, however, responded. Antoine Semenyo pulled one back in the 64th minute from a David Brooks cross, and then completed a brace with a brilliant solo run that exposed Liverpool\u2019s unsettled backline and beat Alisson with a low strike. Semenyo had earlier alerted referee Anthony Taylor to a reported incident of racist abuse against him around the 30-minute mark; managers were consulted and the match resumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout the first half Liverpool enjoyed possession without consistently creating clear chances. Marcus Tavernier scuffed an Adam Smith cutback into Alisson\u2019s arms in the 35th minute before Ekitike\u2019s opener, and Florian Wirtz came closest to a maiden Anfield goal with a shot dragged wide in the 63rd minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defensive changes were made as Arne Slot turned to Wataro Endo and Joe Gomez, though Bournemouth\u2019s momentum produced an equaliser. With the crowd on edge, Chiesa emerged in the closing minutes to volley home after a ricocheted cross from Salah struck several players. In added time Salah cut in onto his right foot and slotted home the clincher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a win won at the death. Liverpool sit top of the Premier League after one game, having needed late interventions to secure all three points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Late strikes from Chiesa and Salah rescued Liverpool at Anfield after surrendering a 2-0 lead today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[739,175],"tags":[59,787,231,281],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bournemouth","category-liverpool","tag-featured","tag-federico-chiesa","tag-hugo-ekitike","tag-mohamed-salah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1757,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions\/1757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}