We look ahead to Saturday’s early kick-off in the Premier League at Portman Road with our Ipswich vs Liverpool prediction and preview. Can Arne Slot get off to a winning start with the Reds?
Ipswich vs Liverpool Stats: The Key Insights
- The Opta supercomputer is predicting that Arne Slot is likely to come away with the three points from his first Premier League game, with Liverpool winning 66.2% of its pre-match simulations.
- Ipswich are unbeaten in their opening league match of the season in each of the last 10 campaigns (W6 D4) since losing 2-1 to Reading in the Championship in 2013-14.
- This will be the first time two managers are taking charge of their first ever Premier League match in a game against each other since David Wagner’s Huddersfield beat Frank De Boer’s Crystal Palace 3-0 in August 2017.
Ipswich Town will make their long-awaited return to the Premier League when they welcome Liverpool to Portman Road this Saturday.
Kieran McKenna’s Tractor Boys ended their 22-year exodus from the top-flight with a superb season last time out to secure back-to-back promotions to the Premier League, becoming just the fifth team to do so and the first since Southampton across the 2010-11 and 2011-12 campaigns.
But top-flight returns don’t come much harder than Saturday’s fixture, hosting a Liverpool side who were in the title race for much of last season, eventually finishing third.
That was under Jürgen Klopp, though, whose tenure saw him return the club to both Premier League and Champions League glory, but came to an emotional conclusion at the end of last season after the German decided to step away.
Arne Slot was chosen as the man to replace him, joining from Feyenoord and bidding to make a winning start to his Anfield stewardship.
For the fifth time in the last six seasons, Liverpool begin their Premier League campaign with a match against a newly-promoted side, having won three and drawn one of their previous four against such teams. They are unbeaten on Matchday 1 in their last 11 seasons (eight wins, three draws) since losing 3-0 to West Brom in the 2012-13 campaign in Brendan Rodgers’ first game in charge.
History isn’t necessarily with Slot, however, with only one of the eight previous managers to take charge of Liverpool in the Premier League winning their first such game (four draws, three defeats).
Liverpool will likely look to Mohamed Salah to be their main goal threat at Portman Road, and the Egypt international boasts an exceptional record in Premier League openers.
No player in Premier League history has scored more goals on MD1 than Salah (eight, level with Alan Shearer, Frank Lampard, and Wayne Rooney), while only Rooney (13 – eight goals, five assists) has more goal involvements on the opening matchday in the competition than the Egyptian (12 – eight goals, four assists).
Ipswich certainly have firepower of their own, though, with only Stockport County (96) and Manchester City (96) scoring more league goals than them (92) in England’s top four tiers last season.
Indeed, since McKenna took charge of the club for the first time in December 2021, only Man City (239) have scored more league goals than Ipswich (222).
McKenna will be desperate to get points on the board early, and he could become just the fifth manager to beat Liverpool in his first ever Premier League game in charge (out of 16 attempts).
Ipswich vs Liverpool Head-to-Head
Liverpool have a fantastic Premier League record at Portman Road, having never lost in five encounters there, winning three and drawing two. Their last visit was a thumping 6-0 triumph in February 2002, and they’ve played more Premier League games at Portman Road without losing than any other ground.
Coincidentally, Ipswich’s last Premier League outing came against Liverpool in May 2002, with the Reds condemning the Tractor Boys to the second tier with a 5-0 victory, including a double from John Arne Riise.
The teams’ last meeting though came in the League Cup the following season. Ipswich ran Liverpool close with a 1-1 draw after extra-time at Anfield, though the Reds ultimately ran out 5-4 victors on penalties.
Ipswich vs Liverpool Prediction
The Opta supercomputer has Liverpool as the clear favourites to leave Portman Road with the victory on Saturday, with Slot’s new side winning almost two-thirds (66.2%) of 10,000 pre-match simulations.
However, buoyed by what is set to be a sold-out home crowd hoping to witness a triumphant Premier League return, Ipswich could fancy their chances, and they came away with the points themselves in 14.9% of simulations. A point would also be a great result for the Tractor Boys, and the teams share the spoils in 18.8% of sims.
These two teams are predicted to finish at opposite ends of the table come the end of the season, with Liverpool third-favourites to win the Premier League title for a second time, doing so in 5.1% of simulations behind strong favourites Man City (82.2%) and Arsenal (12.2%). Ipswich, meanwhile, stay up in just 35.3% of simulations, with only Southampton given a lower chance (33.3%) of staving off the drop.
Ipswich vs Liverpool Predicted Lineups
Ipswich: Arijanet Murić, Leif Davis, Jacob Greaves, Luke Woolfenden, Ben Johnson, Massimo Luongo, Sam Morsy, Omari Hutchinson, Conor Chaplin, Wes Burns, Liam Delap.
Liverpool: Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jarell Quansah, Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson, Wataru Endō, Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Luis Díaz, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Saturday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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