Gomez injury casts shadow over Iraola's first Liverpool win

Liverpool kicked off the Andoni Iraola era with a 4-2 victory over Sunderland in Nashville, but the night was marred by an early injury to Joe Gomez. The centre-back, who started as captain, went down inside the first eight minutes and had to be substituted. It was a bitter blow for a squad already thin on defensive options. "Probably the worst news has been straight away the injury of Joe. We were happy because we were going through training without losing any players and unluckily for us we've lost Joe straight away," Iraola said. The Liverpool boss also revealed new signing Jeremy Jacquet - a centre-half - was held back for the first friendly of the US tour. "With Jeremy we decided to take it easy with him. He's had a lot of months without playing and he's been training very well but we're going to take it easy with him," Iraola added. "He will play probably in the last game of this tour and he will have time to have minutes." With Virgil van Dijk given extra rest after the Netherlands' World Cup campaign, 18-year-olds Mor Talla N'diaye and Ifeanyi Ndukwe held the line until the 68th minute. Both made their debuts and performed admirably under pressure, but neither is expected to feature regularly yet. Giovanni Leoni, 19, is still working back from an ACL tear and remains in individual training. Earlier this week, Iraola had described his squad as "very thin" defensively. Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes was in Nashville for the match, and watching Gomez limp off must have reinforced the urgent need for experienced centre-back cover. On the pitch, though, there was plenty to enjoy. Sunderland took a shock lead through Enzo le Fee, but Dominik Szoboszlai - who wore the armband after coming on at half-time - equalised with a stunning strike from outside the box. Harvey Elliott, back from his loan at Aston Villa, made a surging run to set up Kieran Morrison for a classy left-footed finish that put Liverpool ahead. Morrison, the 19-year-old Northern Ireland international, tormented mediaderland defence all evening. Liverpool still need a quality winger after Mohamed Salah's departure, but Morrison showed he could be an option off the bench if he doesn't go on loan this summer. Timur Tutierov briefly restored parity for Sunderland, but Liverpool replied quickly. Calvin Ramsay played in Federico Chiesa, who produced a brilliant finish to make it 3-2. Then Lewis Koumas capped the scoring with a goal that wrapped up the night for the 24,897 fans, most of them backing Liverpool. Earlier in that move, 16-year-old Josh Abe - who only turned 16 last week - impressed with a powerful run down the right flank on his debut. The England youth international is highly rated, and there were glimpses of why. Iraola's side now head back to Chicago, where Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Ryan Gravenberch have already arrived and start training on Sunday. "It doesn't matter the result but keep pushing, don't relax, get used to not playing too comfortable. We still have a lot of things to improve," the Liverpool head coach said. Liverpool's next friendly is against Wrexham in New York on Thursday (00:30 BST). Sunderland face Leeds at the Sports Illustrated Stadium in New Jersey at the same time.