Liverpool go to Portman Road on Friday night with two points from two matches and a head coach fielding the same question twice over. Andoni Iraola's opening pair in charge both finished 2-2, at Newcastle and then at home to Nottingham Forest, and both times his team had to come from behind to get there.
Iraola was blunt about the second of them. "The first half was poor, it was not good enough," he said afterwards. "We haven't controlled the game and after we improved a lot in the second half." It was the second week running his side had started sluggishly, and in the same breath he named the cause: "In the first half we were too passive without the ball."
Gary O'Neil's Ipswich are shaped to punish precisely that. They took the opening day from Sunderland through a late Jack Clarke winner, knocked Leicester out of the League Cup in midweek, then went to Manchester United and led inside half an hour, Abdul Fatawu beating Luke Shaw on the right before Leif Davis struck his finish in off the bar. The lead held until Marcelino Núñez slipped inside United's half. Bruno Fernandes scored three and United won 5-2.
At least the goals are being shared. Ipswich's four have come from four players: Emersonn, Clarke, Davis and Chuba Akpom. So have Liverpool's, split between Cody Gakpo, Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexander Isak and Víctor Muñoz, whose finish off the underside of the bar rescued the Forest draw. The defending is where the two diverge, with six conceded in two games for Ipswich and four for Liverpool.