Liverpool won the Community Shield against Manchester City 3-1.

Trent Alexander-Arnold scored 22 minutes after meeting Mohamed Salah’s cutback with a first-time shot from 20 yards out.

But Julian Alvarez equalized for the Premier League champions midway through the second half after Adrian parried a Phil Foden effort.

Ruben Dias gave Jurgen Klopp’s team a penalty eight minutes from time by handling Darwin Nunez’s header, which Mohamed Salah converted.

Substitute Nunez added a third in stoppage time when he stooped to meet an Andy Robertson knockdown from Salah’s cross into the City penalty area.

Here were the key talking points from the King Power Stadium:

New setting, but the same old rivalry

Anyone dismissing this as a glorified pre-season friendly was given a crash course as to why Liverpool and Manchester City remain the gold standard.

The location may have changed temporarily but little about this contest lent itself to a leisurely preamble ahead of next weekend’s Premier League return.

Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola would not want it to be any other way.

Leicester’s King Power Stadium witnessed what has become one of the most anticipated games in English football played out at its peak intensity levels.

Although the Reds drew first blood and enjoyed the lion’s share of chances in the opening half-hour, City went on to match them virtually pound for pound.

It was only a matter of time before the fine margins which separated them both last season and in 2018/19 again came to the fore in the closing stages.

On this evidence, Liverpool is set to push their North West counterparts every step of the way in the pair’s latest battle for domestic dominance.

Time will tell whether this proves to be a foreshadowing for Pep Guardiola or

Nunez is already up and running

Much of the pre-match discussion centered on both clubs’ summer strikers.

At a potential of £85 million each, it was inevitable that Darwin Nunez and Erling Haaland would be under the microscope in their first head-to-head meeting.

City’s new no.9 appeared promising on his full debut but failed to burst Adrian’s goal despite being presented with a glut of goal-scoring chances.

Nunez, however, appears to already be up and running after a second-half cameo that saw his name regularly reverberating around the King Power.

Successive one-v-one situations against Ederson highlighted both the Uruguay international’s searing pace and guile to bring the ball into dangerous areas.

His menacing presence in the box also saw Ruben Dias make an unforced error in handling the ball, allowing Liverpool to retake their lead late on.

Yet he saved the best for last by meeting a Mohamed Salah cross which Andy Robertson had the foresight to allow to run through to his new teammate.

First impressions can often be misleading in football, yet Nunez appears to possess many of the qualities which will make him a fearsome prospect.

Klopp finally completes the set

Whether or not he admits it, Klopp’s motivation for this game extended beyond the need to set down a marker for the forthcoming campaign.

The Community Shield represented a blemish on the German’s otherwise glittering CV throughout his six-and-a-half-year tenure as Liverpool manager.

While the FA Cup and Carabao Cup became belated additions to his personal Anfield trophy cabinet last season, this was the one that kept getting away.

Prior to the latest installment of the season’s traditional curtain-raiser, Klopp had led his team to the Shield’s medal podium for the third year in a row.

On both occasions, a penalty shootout denied him the trophy, just as the Premier League title had previously denied him.

Klopp’s mindset is unlikely to change after crossing off the final frontier of a domestic set. It will only fuel his desire to win more.