Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling give Liverpool a winning start to Premier League season

Brendan Rodgers side prevail over Southampton at Anfield.

Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling challenges Southampton’s Graziano Pelle. EPA

Liverpool // They are used to the scenario at Anfield. A goal is required. Amid late pressure, a chance falls to a striker wearing No 7.

What followed next, however, is not another Luis Suarez story.

Instead, the opportunity went the way of Southampton’s No 7, not the most recent incumbent of Liverpool’s most-celebrated shirt.

The ball ended up wide of the goal, not in the back of the net. There was no debut strike for Shane Long, inheritor of Rickie Lambert’s number, as treasured in Hampshire as it is on Merseyside.

Instead of equalising, the munificent No 7 granted Liverpool a winning start, the combination of Daniel Sturridge’s untidy finish at one end and his miss at the other.

The margins can be that narrow. “With the quality of Liverpool, they don’t need many opportunities to score and that makes the difference,” rued Ronald Koeman, condemned to defeat on his debut as Southampton manager.

“We had to grind out a result,” said his Liverpool counterpart, Brendan Rodgers.

“It was a brilliant win for us.”

The beauty lay in the result, in the sense that Liverpool have moved on, much as Suarez has. Here, his inspiration was indirect.

“He sent us a lovely text wishing us all the best, which was a great gesture,” Rodgers said.

“He is a friend of Liverpool.”

Suarez is part of the past now, with Rodgers stressing that, while the quest to replace him continues, Liverpool’s hopes were not transferred to Barcelona along with their top scorer.

“We are bigger than any player,” Rodgers said. “He is a great boy, but he is gone. We do still want another striker, but that will depend on the availability.”

Liverpool did introduce one new forward. Lambert was warmly applauded before his cameo and, though Rodgers felt the substitute gave his side another dimension, the scoresheet showed a variant on a familiar theme as Liverpool’s goals came from the new SAS.

Suarez and Sturridge are separated, but Sturridge and Raheem Sterling struck.

“Raheem’s was a great goal,” Rodgers said.

Jordan Henderson measured his pass, applying the right amount of curl and the appropriate weight. Sterling accelerated onto it and calmly placed his shot past Southampton’s debutant keeper, Fraser Forster.

“For Daniel, it was just a continuation,” Rodgers said. “He always looks like he will score.”

Sturridge has 36 goals in 50 appearances, the second-best percentage of any striker in Liverpool history.

“That shows the level he is at,” Rodgers said.

Sturridge has standards to maintain, and not just because Suarez is gone and Liverpool failed to find a marquee replacement.

Indeed, while Rodgers has made eight signings, there is continuity on the pitch, partly because of the injuries that sidelined Adam Lallana and Lazar Markovic.

Southampton endured greater change, and Koeman gave out five debuts, four from the start. The sales that brought Saints £93 million (Dh570m) and cost them the services of five players have prompted predictions that they could be relegated at season’s end.

“If we play like that, I don’t think we will struggle,” Koeman said. “The way we played brings us a lot of confidence.”

After trailing, they responded. Tottenham target Morgan Schneiderlin has been told he has to stay. While unsettled, he almost levelled with a curler that Simon Mignolet just saved.

Then Southampton illustrated that the departures of star players can have fringe benefits. Had Calum Chambers not joined Arsenal, perhaps Nathaniel Clyne would have been on the bench. Instead, he started and scored, thumping his goal in with relish.

The more delicate contribution came from the newcomer Dusan Tadic, whose lovely flick found the full-back running into space.

A deficit could have become an advantage, with Steven Davis missing an opportunity to make it 2-1. Then, as Liverpool’s defence creaked in worrisome and familiar fashion, Schneiderlin struck the bar with a shot that, but for a superb save from Mignolet, would have gone in. Long failed to finish on the rebound.

It rekindled memories of Mignolet’s stop of Stoke’s Jonathan Walters’s penalty at the equivalent stage of opening day 12 months ago.

Then, as now, it was not a question of how Liverpool won, but the simple fact that they did.

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