Daniel Sturridge: scored the winner

Raheem Sterling: opened scoring for Liverpool

Goals in each half from Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge saw Liverpool edge Southampton in a 2-1 win in a Premier League match at Anfield.

Daniel Sturridge snaffled the79th-minute winner as last season’s Premier League runners-up  opened the new campaign.

Raheem Sterling put Liverpool ahead midway through the first half at a sun-soaked Anfield, but Nathaniel Clyne lashed home an equaliser shortly before the hour following a neat exchange with debutant Dusan Tadic.

Brendan Rodgers’s Liverpool looked destined to drop points in their first competitive game since the sale of Luis Suarez to Barcelona, but with 11 minutes to play, Sterling teed up Sturridge to flick home the winning goal.

“We scored two very good goals and we’re delighted about the win,” Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers told Sky Sports.

“In terms of the character and desire and the will to win, we were exceptional.”

With debutants Javier Manquillo and Dejan Lovren — the former Southampton defender — in their starting XI, Liverpool dominated possession in the early stages and took the lead in the 23rd minute.

The goal owed much to the tenacity of Jordan Henderson, who helped Manquillo dispossess Tadic, won a 50-50 with Morgan Schneiderlin, and then freed Sterling to beat Fraser Forster with a first-time finish.

It was a turbulent close season for Southampton, who lost five key players and appointed a new manager in Ronald Koeman, but they were not cowed by Liverpool’s opener and equalised in the 56th minute.

Clyne rolled a pass forward to Tadic and the Serbian held off his marker before backheeling the ball into the path of his onrushing team-mate, who thrashed a shot into the top-right corner.

Steven Davis could have completed the comeback, only to shoot meekly at Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet from James Ward-Prowse’s pass, and it was a spurned opportunity that Koeman would come to rue.

Rodgers sent on Rickie Lambert, another player who left Southampton in the close season, in the 76th minute, but it was Sturridge who claimed the winner.

Rodgers revealed later that former  striker Luis Suarez sent his old team-mates a good-luck message ahead of their opening  game.

“Luis Suarez sent us a lovely text (message) this morning, wishing us all the best and telling us to start strong — it’s a lovely gesture,” Rodgers said “He sent the text to me personally. What did it say? Don’t be so nosey! I texted him back. It’s a great love-in I’ve got with him!

“He’s a great boy, but he’s gone. It was a lovely touch. Liverpool will always be in his heart.”

Suarez was Liverpool’s top scorer last season with 31 league goals, but he was sold to Barcelona last month after being given a four-month ban by FIFA for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup. It was the third such incident of the Uruguayan’s career.