Before kick-off a banner was raised in the Gallowgate End inscribed with a quotation from the late Kevin Keegan. “I want people to dream about their football,” it read. “We should all be dreamers at heart.”

Out on the pitch it swiftly became apparent that both Matthias Jaissle, Keegan’s latest successor in the Newcastle dugout, and Liverpool’s Andoni Iraola are on individual missions to create forms or organised chaos capable of subjecting the best opponents to torrid nightmares.

Despite a few, ultimately forlorn attempts to introduce a semblance of control on the part of the visiting playmaker Florian Wirtz, this was sheer, unadulterated chaos of the sort to make Iraola’s Anfield predecessor, Arne Slot, wince. Along the way to a draw secured, slightly fortunately, by Dominik Szoboszlai’s stoppage-time penalty for Liverpool, the returning former Newcastle striker Alexander Isak left minimal imprint on a match that had been supposed to be all about him. Instead Isak was upstaged by Jaissle’s centre-forward William Osula.

Once the tributes to Keegan, a player and manager adored by both clubs, were completed it very quickly became apparent that Jérémy Jacquet did not relish marking a striker as pacey and utterly unpredictable as Osula. Jacquet and his central defensive partner, Virgil van Dijk, certainly had no answers as the young Dane turned and accelerated towards goal following Ryan Gravenberch’s concession of possession on the edge of the Newcastle box.

All that remained was for the home centre forward to spot Anthony Elanga leaving Milos Kerkez for dust down the right, slide a pass in the winger’s direction and watch as, a steadying touch later, Elanga’s shot flashed beyond Alisson’s reach.

Only five minutes had passed, Jaissle tenure as Newcastle’s head coach was off to perfect start and, already, Iraola looked more than a little stressed. This was also Iraola’s Premier League debut with Liverpool and he surely had not bargained on gaining such an uncomfortable insight as to why Slot found last season such hard going.

Iraola’s defence did not convince, with Kerkez finding few answers to Elanga. Like Jaissle the former Bournemouth head coach is a high priest of pressing but Liverpool’s best hope here seemed to be retaining possession and trying to out-pass Newcastle.

Their best first half moments certainly came on those albeit sporadic occasions when Wirtz, managed to get on the ball and began unnerving a Newcastle side supposedly undergoing an even more dramatic transition.

It is only three weeks since Jaissle succeeded Eddie Howe but the former Al-Ahli manager has certainly succeeded in not merely re-energising a mentally jaded team but sharpening a swarm pressing game that had become more than a little half hearted and untidy.

Given that Jaissle has inherited a team shorn of last season’s luminaries – Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães – this achievement was all the more impressive. The 38-year-old German trusted 18-year-old Sean Steur, recently arrived from Ajax, alongside Lewis Miley in the key holding roles in his 4-2-3-1 system and for long periods they held their own against Wirtz and co.

Behind them, Malick Thiaw and Sven Botman excelled in central defence while Amar Dedic enjoyed a superb debut at right-back following his £30m move from Benfica.

There are ways to leave a football club but the route Isak chose – mounting a one-man strike before forcing a record £125m move to Liverpool last summer – ensured he was greeted by prolonged cheers and chants of “rat, rat, rat” as he alighted from the visiting team bus.

If Isak seemed quite unconcerned – he grinned broadly in the face of some sustained hostility before kick-off – the Sweden striker added to Iraola’s problems in the course of a wholly anonymous first half, failing to unleash a single shot on goal.

Indeed when, early in the second half, Wirtz briefly began bringing a bit of sustained cohesion to the team in red, it was a forward facing an uncertain future at Anfield who capitalised. When Jaissle’s midfield inexplicably stood off him Gakpo’s first-time shot from outside the area offered Hornicek no hope of a save.

With Osula by now limping on came Joe Willock for Newcastle leaving the impressive Yoane Wissa to shift from the No 10 to No 9 role. Willock seems to be a midfielder whose time on Tyneside is running out but he does not seem overkeen on a mooted move to Beskitas and immediately offered a reminder of his worth.

When Wissa, rather wonderfully, dodged three supposed Newcastle markers, his ensuing pass to Willock was superbly calibrated and the latter returned the compliment by curling a shot past Allison and in off the inside of a post.

Tellingly, Willock was mobbed by every outfield teammates with Nick Woltemade and the rest of the home substitutes racing the length of the pitch to congratulate him.

Iraola replaced Wirtz and Rio Ngumoha with Alexis Mac Allister and Victor Muñoz but was unlucky his side did not fall further behind when home substitute Jacob Ramsey went close with a volley. Isak, meanwhile, miscued his one real chance to score.

Then, deep in injury time, Muñoz was brought down by Lewis Hall in the area and Dominik Szoboszlai lashed his penalty high into the roof of the net to level a game as swashbuckling as anything even Keegan might have conjured.