Ipswich Town and Liverpool Both Seek Their Best Form at Portman Road

Ipswich Town host Liverpool at Portman Road with both sides still looking for their best form after two rounds of the Premier League. The hosts arrive with 3 points and the visitors with 2, a start that falls well short of what's expected from a regular title contender like Liverpool.

Ipswich Town sit 12th with one win and one loss so far in the league, having scored 4 goals and conceded 6. Over their last five matches (a sample that mixes competitions and isn't limited to the Premier League) they've picked up three wins, a draw and a loss, with that defeat as the most recent result in the run. Liverpool, meanwhile, sit 13th, with two draws from their two league matches and a goal difference of 4 for and 4 against. Across their last five outings they have one win, three draws and a loss, and come into this one without a win in their most recent matches within that sample.

Neither of these table positions should be overstated: with only 2 matches played in the league, the standings remain extremely tight, and the gap between the two sides is just 1 point.

There's also a trend worth separating from the straight league record: in the 2026 Premier League season, combining home and away matches, Ipswich Town are averaging 2 goals scored and 3 conceded per game across a sample of 2 matches, with no clean sheets, and tend to score most often between the 16th and 30th minutes. Liverpool, in that same competition and season, also combining home and away form, are averaging 2 goals scored and 2 conceded per game, likewise without a clean sheet, with their most productive stretch coming between the 46th and 60th minutes. These are small samples and shouldn't be read as a full picture of the season.

A Tough History for Ipswich Town

The head-to-head record doesn't favor the hosts: in the 2 previous meetings between these clubs, Liverpool won both, with an aggregate scoreline of 6 goals for Liverpool against just 1 for Ipswich Town.

Probable Lineups

Ipswich Town's lineup, based on a low-confidence projection drawn from their recent matches, looks likely to feature Christian Walton in goal, with Dara O'Shea, Jacob Greaves, Leif Davis and Darnell Furlong across the back line, and Marcelino Núñez alongside Azor Matusiwa anchoring midfield. For Liverpool, the projected XI points to Alisson Becker between the posts, a back line of Jeremie Frimpong, Virgil van Dijk, Milos Kerkez and Jérémy Jacquet, and a midfield trio of Dominik Szoboszlai, Florian Wirtz and Ryan Gravenberch, with Alexander Isak leading the attack. Both lineups are projections, not confirmed teams.

What the Numbers Say Before Kickoff

EnPelotas's model calculates the following probabilities for this match, worth noting this is our own estimate, not a betting line:

The breakdown makes Liverpool the clear favorite, with a 60% probability compared to Ipswich Town's 18% and a 22% chance of a draw. Expected goals back up that reading too: our model projects 1.19 goals for Ipswich Town against 2.24 for Liverpool, for a combined total of 3.44 expected goals in the match, figures that are our own projection and not an official statistic.

With Ipswich Town needing points at home and a Liverpool side still searching for the consistency expected of them, Portman Road could end up being a solid gauge of where each of these two teams truly stands.