Newcastle led twice in Jaissle’s first game, and lost two points in the 99th minute

Alexander Isak was booed before he had touched a ball at St James’ Park, and by the time the game was decided he still had not really touched it. His first return to Newcastle since the £125m move to Liverpool ended with someone else standing over the ball that mattered, in the ninth minute of stoppage time.

Dominik Szoboszlai scored that penalty. It made the score 2-2, took two points off Newcastle in Matthias Jaissle’s first league match in charge, and rescued a point for Andoni Iraola on an afternoon when Liverpool spent an hour looking like the away side.

Elanga after five minutes, then two goals in three

Newcastle did not need long. Anthony Elanga finished a quick counter in the fifth minute, and a crowd that had come to make a point about one player got the start it wanted.

The game broke open just before the hour. Cody Gakpo drove one in low from around 20 yards in the 55th minute. Two minutes later Yoane Wissa worked the ball into a position Joe Willock could attack, Willock put Newcastle back in front, and for the next half hour Jaissle was on course for the kind of result that makes a new manager’s first week.

The 99th minute, and a manager who disagreed

Víctor Muñoz had been on for the last half hour, making his Liverpool debut after arriving from Osasuna this summer, when Lewis Hall caught him inside the box. Stuart Attwell pointed to the spot. VAR reviewed it and stayed with the on-field call, logging knee-into-thigh contact, and the Premier League’s Match Centre later said Hall had not played the ball and had made clear contact.

Szoboszlai put it in the top corner. The clock read 90+9.

Jaissle was not persuaded. “I think you call it here a really soft one,” he said. “If you give that then there will be so many penalties in the future. I am not a fan of that, I have to say. I disagree but more I cannot say.” He was happier with everything before it: “Hard luck, I would say. I’m really, really happy with the performance after such a short amount of time.”

Iraola saw an afternoon his side had earned something from. “I don’t think we deserved to lose the game and I value the effort from the players,” he told Sky Sports. What interested him was where the equaliser came from rather than the decision itself. “I think the players coming from the bench gave us energy,” he said. “I don’t know if they played better, worse, but they gave us energy. And you can feel the way we want to play, everyone is not going to last 90 minutes.”

The man who won the penalty had come off that bench.

Isak’s return did not go the way the build-up suggested

The reception began in the warm-up and never let up. Isak went on strike to force his way out of Newcastle last summer, missed the start of that season, and left on deadline day for a British-record £125m. Every loose touch he took on Sunday was cheered.

He stayed on for the full 90 and made almost no impression. That is not really new. He arrived on Merseyside unfit, broke his leg, and finished his first season with four goals in all competitions, and he was injured for last season’s meeting at St James’ Park, which is why this was his first trip back as a Liverpool player. Iraola called the display a good step, which is what a manager says when the numbers are not going to help him.

The penalty went to Szoboszlai. Isak did not take it.

Both clubs stopped for Kevin Keegan

Before any of it, the players warmed up in shirts carrying Keegan’s name and the number 7. Keegan died on 20 July at 75, and he belongs to both of these clubs in a way almost no other footballer does. There was a mosaic in the centre circle, a tribute video, a tifo in the stands, and both squads gathered in the middle of the pitch for it.

For a fixture sold all week on one striker’s homecoming, that was the part of the afternoon nobody argued about.

Where it leaves them

A point each to open the season. Newcastle were the better team for an hour and could not close it out, and their wait goes on: they have not beaten Liverpool at home in the league since December 2015, and this was a 20th Premier League meeting between them without a Newcastle win. Liverpool, passive for long stretches, extended their unbeaten run at St James’ Park to ten league visits, which equals the longest any side has managed there in the competition.

Iraola will take the point and the question that came with it, because plenty of people spent the evening asking about his midfield. Jaissle will take the performance and wonder how his side ended up with one point from it.

Catch every Premier League result as the season builds