Liverpool's Opening Day Dominance: Breaking Down the Reds' Premier League Season Starters
Premier League title holders Liverpool kick off the 2025–26 campaign on Friday evening, hosting Bournemouth at Anfield.
The Merseyside club maintains an impressive record across their previous 33 season openers, securing 19 victories, 10 draws and suffering only four defeats. This represents a 57.58% success rate for season-opening fixtures in the Premier League era, and this percentage is expected to increase considering Liverpool, the championship favorites, have triumphed in their most recent five encounters with Bournemouth.
Extending this further, Liverpool remain undefeated in their previous 12 opening fixtures and have claimed victory in 11 of their last 12 league clashes against the Cherries.
For those with superstitious tendencies, this marks the first occasion since 2020–21 that Liverpool commence their campaign at their home ground. When they last did so, they were protecting their inaugural Premier League era championship, emerging triumphant 4–3 against Leeds United.
Taking it one step further, Liverpool compete on a Friday to launch the festivities. The previous time this occurred was during 2019–20... the campaign they claimed the title under Jürgen Klopp's guidance.
Mohamed Salah Looks to Make Premier League History Once Again
Mohamed Salah remains unquestionably the club's key figure, despite significant investment during the summer transfer period. The Egyptian secured the previous season's Golden Boot and Player of the Season accolade while leading the team to the league championship. He also earned a Ballon d'Or nomination, though disappointing performances in European and domestic cup tournaments likely prevented Salah from claiming football's most prestigious individual award.
Nevertheless, Salah has focused his attention on not only protecting his team's title this campaign, but also creating some history in the process. He has the opportunity to achieve this on the opening day.
Should Salah score against Bournemouth, he would become the inaugural player in Premier League history to net 10 goals on opening day. He already holds Liverpool's record for most strikes in season-opening matches, topping a list of four that features Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler and Sadio Mané.
If Salah does find the net, he will reach joint-second alongside Sergio Agüero for the most Premier League goals at one ground with 106. Salah will likely surpass the Argentine, health permitting, this season and will pursue Thierry Henry who maintains the record with 114 goals netted at Arsenal's former Highbury stadium.