Defeat to Liverpool as Norwich City returned to the Premier League predictably produced a range of reactions.

For some eternal pessimists, it was early proof that City are doomed. While for others the fact that possession levels were fairly even, despite the significantly greater goal threat from the visitors, confirmed that all will be well when players are fully fit and assimilated into Daniel Farke’s style.

Undoubtedly, City started the game well and were the sharper team in the first 20 minutes, but after Mo Salah’s failure to control the ball wrongfooted the City defence and gave Diogo Jota the chance to open the scoring the visitors were largely in control. Nevertheless, the Canaries competed gamely despite looking increasingly tired after the hour mark, which was hardly surprising given the disruption to their pre-season.

That, of course, raised the question of why fresh legs weren’t introduced earlier given the growing ascendancy of the visitors. In his post-match interview, Farke himself said: “I think for 65 minutes, as long as our energy and power were there, we were quite competitive.” So why wait until after the third goal when the game was lost to make any changes, given the quality available on the bench?

Certainly, Josh Sargent’s 13-minute cameo suggested that the American has a lot to offer, but it came much too late to have any impact on the outcome of the game.

Inevitably the margin of Liverpool’s victory provided ample opportunity for lazy pundits to suggest that Farke and City had learnt nothing from their failure to stay up two seasons ago, but is that really fair?

Well, two familiar issues arose against Liverpool. The first of these was the way in which top teams are able to exploit the space behind City’s full-backs when they push on, and the second was how susceptible City can be to the quick counter.

However, I think that both of those problems could be resolved if they were able to field a more natural holding player than Billy Gilmour who in turn is likely to be more effective higher up the pitch.

City also looked much stronger and better organised on set-pieces, something that was a clear Achilles heel two seasons ago. Although Liverpool’s third goal came indirectly from a corner, Ben Gibson won the first ball cleanly, something that City frequently failed to do last time around, but Salah was left completely unmarked on the edge of the box to pick his spot.

Equally, there was little to find fault with in City’s build-up play, with plenty of movement and crisp passing in midfield and Milot Rashica showing what he’s going to bring to the team on the flanks, but too many moves broke down on the final ball and a lack of bodies in the Liverpool box saw some decent crosses go to waste.

Pierre Lees-Melou added calmness to City’s midfield and used the ball intelligently, but City’s outstanding performer was Dimitris Giannoulis who was impressive going forward but also handled the tricky Salah particularly well.

However, a special mention should go to Grant Hanley, who was unable to play a single minute of pre-season but led from the front on Saturday and was unlucky to see the ball deflect off him straight into Salah’s path to set up Liverpool’s decisive second goal with Gilmour failing to track Roberto Firmino into City’s box.

City’s opening games against two of the top teams in Europe are not going to define their season and Farke will have seen plenty of positives in last week’s performance given what had gone before, but that won’t be allowed to mask the shortcomings exposed because as Gibson pointed out in his Radio Norfolk interview the Premier League is ruthless and fine margins matter.

Farke will want to deal with any perceived weaknesses because, unlike in the Championship, at this level they will be identified and exploited by every single opponent.

- Robin Sainty is the chairman of the Canaries Trust, which is the 12th largest shareholder in Norwich City

NCFC EXTRA: Bond backing Canaries and City to achieve top-flight targets