Liverpool will round off their preseason schedule this evening in Geneva, Switzerland, with a friendly against French Ligue 1 side, Lyon.
Jurgen Klopp’s Reds have lost three of their last four summer friendlies so will be looking for a much-needed confidence-boosting win tonight ahead of Sunday’s Community Shield fixture against Manchester City.
This week, the squad welcomed back Alisson, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah from their summer breaks.
There was also good news on the injury front with both Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri returning to full training as well.
For tonight’s match, Klopp will most likely stick with his first-choice back four but now Alisson will return between the sticks.
Liverpool’s defence – as we saw against Napoli – need all the time they can get working together ahead of the new season. They looked disjointed at the back in the 3-0 defeat to the Serie A side with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joel Matip looking particularly out of sync with the rest of the defence.
In midfield, Fabinho should start at the base and I expect Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum to play just in front of the Brazilian, making up the midfield trio.
In attack, Divock Origi will probably start in the centre and I think Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will again be asked to play on the left – even though he really struggled there against Napoli. Klopp will want to keep building up Oxlade-Chamberlain’s minutes to have the former Arsenal man ready for a return to competitive action. I think Harry Wilson will again get the nod on the right-hand side of the front line.
Salah, Firmino, Keita and Shaqiri should all get some minutes in the second half but I don’t think Klopp is going to start them in this evening’s game.
Liverpool’s likely lineup Vs Lyon (4-3-3): Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson(c), Wijnaldum; Wilson, Origi, Oxlade-Chamberlain
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We have already seen our manager say that City are the hot favourites for everything this year, despite us making record profits, and, whilst City have spent £63m on a first team player, we have bought two kids. buy two top players and we could overtake City but our manager is seemingly accepting second place again. They improve the squad that beat us to three of the top four trophies last year and we don’t add to our first team squad at all. How is that catching them up and overtaking them? Even if we sell Wilson and Lovren we probably won’t spend that money as an already small squad faces utter exhaustion in the busiest season ever. We will be praying to get knocked out of the two domestic cups early, like last year! We have apparently already capitulated!