If Liverpool Women are to deliver on manager Vicky Jepson’s target of an improvement on last season’s eighth-placed finish this year, then games like this may well be crucial.
The Reds finished three league positions and five points behind their opening-day opposition, Reading, in the Women’s Super League last term.
Consequently, this meeting between the sides felt like a chance for the hosts to make a statement about their loftier ambitions this time around.
And, while it wasn’t to be in terms of the scoreline after the Royals came away with a 1-0 victory, there was at least enough in the performance to suggest that there is much more to come.
It is five years since Liverpool last won the WSL - a success that was followed by the loss of several star players and an inevitable decline.
But there is renewed optimism that those glory days are on their way back to Merseyside with the talented Jepson at the helm.
Prior to the new campaign getting under way, the LFC Women’s boss had spoken of greater support from across the club having made her job of creating a successful team easier.
And evidence of that could certainly be seen in the performance Melissa Lawley, a summer signing from Manchester City who was central to everything good the hosts did in attack.
The 25-year-old should have put Liverpool ahead when she met a Jess Clarke cross with a weak header early in the first half.
However, that would in truth have been an unfair reflection of an opening 45 minutes that Reading seemed to spend underlining how far their hosts still have to go.
The visitors were reaching the edge of the Reds’ box with alarming regularity only for profligacy in promising areas to cost them time and time again.
But, as if to prove that Jepson’s team still have work to do to shirk off the ghosts of their triumphant past, Reading took the lead close to half-time through a former Reds favourite.
Fara Williams won two WSL titles in three years on Merseyside, a haul that had much to do with the quality she showed in effortlessly floating a 25-yard free-kick into the top corner to open the scoring here.
It hadn’t been the half the home supporters had hoped for after a summer of change, but there was enough in the second period to engender belief that this team can succeed this season.
Only a Courtney Sweetman-Kirk miscontrol prevented the Reds from levelling things up straight after the restart, the striker failing to finish after being put in one-on-one.
Liverpool also went close when Rinsola Babjide arrowed a brilliant left-footed effort agonisingly wide after a brilliant dribble into the box and Lawley headed just past the same upright soon after.
It is those chances and a second-half showing that saw Reading pinned back that are sure to be the focus of Jepson’s post-match analysis as she looks to build on a start that proved her season’s target is not out of reach.
