This remains a Liverpool side offering more questions than answers.
One significant question is the Cody Gakpo conundrum, which will roll into the final week of the transfer window.
If Liverpool do bring in two more attacking players then Gakpo may leave.
The club have been linked with Paris St-Germain’s Bradley Barcola and Ibrahim Mbaye and have had two bids rejected for Brighton’s Yankuba Minteh.
Yet Dutchman Gakpo was Liverpool’s best player at Newcastle and took his goal brilliantly – while there was another positive in the performance of Spanish forward Victor Munoz on his Liverpool debut from the bench.
Munoz won the late penalty after replacing Ngumoha but Iraola’s decision to take off the English teenager off after just over an hour summed up how much he struggled down the right.
Ngumoha will turn 18 next week and has preferred to play down the left throughout his youth career but failed to have an impact on the other side.
With Iraola determined to have his wingers able to play on both sides, it remains to be seen if that experiment persists once Liverpool get more attackers in.
What is for certain is that Iraola needs more options. Once Munoz and Alexis Mac Allister came on in the 63rd minute, Iraola’s remaining bench options were: Giorgi Mamardashvili, Ronald Araujo, Wataru Endo, Kostas Tsimikas, Trey Nyoni, James McConnell and Lewis Koumas.
Defensively, both Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong had poor games at full-back and Liverpool were undone on the counter attack for both of the goals they conceded.
The lack of a defensive midfielder showed and it was revealing to see Iraola use Mac Allister just ahead of the back four after Joe Willock put Newcastle 2-1 up.
Liverpool have now conceded more goals via fast breaks in all competitions than any other Premier League team since the start of last season – nine.
All that and more will be food for thought for the new Liverpool boss but this was a relatively positive start to life under Iraola – who prefers to wait until the day after the match for a debrief.
“I’ve liked a lot of the things I’ve seen from the team,” he said. “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.”
“We will never give up. I can guarantee you that,” Szoboszlai 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.”
That desire was never a cause for concern on Tyneside. But this Liverpool squad must improve, both in terms of quality and quantity.
