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Alan Shearer was at St James' Park on Monday to see Rio Ngumoha score a last-minute winner for Liverpool in a thrilling game in the North East. But he wasn't impressed by what he saw from the Reds.
"Liverpool were really poor," Shearer said on the Rest is Football podcast. "I know it’s very, very early, and I know they’ve got new players, but defensively, they are all over the place.
"Milos Kerkez had another really poor game, Mohamed Salah didn’t look his normal self, and they couldn’t get Florian Wirtz into the game. I know they’ve got a great mentality; they won the game, and that is a huge positive for them.
"But there are also plenty of negatives — how they were dominated by 10-man Newcastle in the second half, the way they were beaten for Bruno Guimaraes' goal, Kerkez was far too weak at that far post. They’ve got a lot to work on, Liverpool, to get back."
While Liverpool has only just got over the line in each of its two fixtures so far this season and there is work to be done to improve defensively, the Newcastle game was a unique case.
"How do you sum an evening like this up? It felt familiar to me; I think I have experienced a game like this once before since I'm here in England — that was Everton away last season," Arne Slot said.
"Where so many things happened, where it was complete chaos, where the fans were so loud and so there for the home team and our fans tried to help us as much as they could.
"It was an unbelievable atmosphere and for us to stay strong in that atmosphere for such a long time is worth more to me than when we play every single time out from the back and we have a four or five-nil win.
"These wins, these mean more to me than when we play good football because tonight had, for me, nothing to do with tactics or good football.
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"It was a great game to watch but not because of tactics or good football. But because for every single second of the game everybody was on the front of their seat."
Liverpool hosts Arsenal at the weekend and will need to work on its defending from set-pieces before then.
Having got six points on the board so far, though, it has been a strong start even if the performances haven't been perfect.
Liverpool.com says: Kerkez is a really good defender and though he is still getting up to speed at Anfield, there is no cause for concern. In any case, Liverpool has won twice with him in the team, so things can't be going that badly.
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