Liverpool vs Fulham facts ahead of the first Premie League match

Liverpool take on Fulham on Saturday in Round 1 of this new Premier League season and here are some interesting preview facts about how both teams are coming into the game. Fulham were unbeaten in both Premier League games against Liverpool in 2020-21, drawing 1-1 at home and winning 1-0 at Anfield. Despite suffering relegation that season, the Cottagers' four points against the Reds was their most points against an opponent (also four against Sheffield United and West Brom).

Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp lost his first Premier League game under Marco Silva in February 2017, when his side lost 2-0 at Hull. Since then, Klopp is unbeaten in his last four meetings against the Portuguese in the competition (2V 2E), the most recent being a 5-2 win over Silva's Everton. On the five previous occasions Fulham have been newly promoted to England's top flight they have lost their first league game of the season, doing so in the 1949-50, 1959-60, 2001-02, 2018-19 and 2020-21 seasons.

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Liverpool have won their first Premier League game in each of the last four seasons, the longest ongoing streak in the top flight, scoring at least three goals in each victory (15 goals in total). Fulham are winless in their last 10 Premier League games (2E 8D) and their last top-flight win came against Liverpool in March 2021.

Liverpool are unbeaten in their last 19 Premier League games (16V 3E) since a 1-0 defeat at Leicester in December 2021. The Reds have won their last three games despite conceding the first goal in the first 15 minutes on each occasion: only Arsenal (March 2012) have won four consecutive Premier League games by coming from behind in all of them. In their last Premier League season, in 2020-21, Fulham became the first team to fail to reach double figures for goals in home league games in English league history (9 in 19 games). They have failed to score more than one goal in any of their last 14 Premier League home games, scoring just four goals in total in that run.

This will be Fulham manager Marco Silva's first Premier League game in 976 days, a 5-2 defeat for Everton against Liverpool in December 2019. There have been only three occasions when a manager has had a longer gap between Premier League games and all against the same team - Kevin Keegan (2054 days between 1997 and 2002, against Leeds), Alan Pardew (1308 days between 2007 and 2010, against Liverpool) and Keegan again (1048 days between 2005 and 2008, against Bolton).
Fulham striker Aleksandar Mitrovic has scored 24 goals in 104 Premier League games, averaging a goal every 286 minutes in the competition. This contrasts with his Championship record, where the Serbian has scored 85 goals in 126 games, scoring once every 117 minutes on average.

Mohamed Salah has scored in Liverpool's opening Premier League game in each of his five seasons at the club, with the Egyptian the only player in the competition's history to score on the opening day for five years in a row. In fact, Salah has seven such goals in total, with only three players having scored more (Alan Shearer, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney, eight each).