In their first pre-season friendly yesterday, Liverpool accomplished a swift 4-0 victory over Preston North End, the English League One side. Rodgers interchanged his host of senior players and youngsters along with all of his four new recruits. Philippe Coutinho, Jordon Ibe, Raheem Sterling and Iago Aspas, the latter on his debut were the players to hit the bull’s eye.
In the first match, Liverpool embarked in a fascinating way and after this match the fans must be optimistic than ever about their team’s chances.
Here are three things that we can derive from this warm-up.
1) New players shining
One thing that we can say from yesterday’s match is that the money that Liverpool have spent on the new players have not gone into the drain. Though no-one played the full time, they showed their skill in brief spans. Mignolet actually played around 70 minutes in goal before being replaced by Danny Ward, but the Belgian looked in total control of the proceedings and also made a decent save. Kolo Toure had a little to do in defence, as Liverpool didn’t face any serious threat, but he looked strong. Luis Alberto played in central-midfield, he got forward a few times and played some neat through-passes. But this was more about integrating him into the side rather than getting a top performance from him. And Aspas was the pick of new signings, with a brilliant goal and also linking up well with his fellow players.
2) Improved show from the current players?
Jordon Ibe and Raheem Sterling, the two most talented teenagers in the team have shown marks of aptness. Ibe’s pace and movement caused plenty of problems for the Preston back line, and he was never afraid to run with the ball at his feet, moving both infield and down the flanks as he situation demanded. And in accordance with that, he also scored for his side. On the other hand, Sterling came on the field in the second half and put in a terrific performance from the left of the front three. These two showed Liverpool have great depth and quality in up-front.
3) What was their game plan?
It seems that finally Rodgers’ philosophies are taking a shape with the club playing a distinct variety of football. The Spanish style of play is what Rodgers had wanted and the inclusion of Aspas and Alberto would only take that motive forward, as evidenced from yesterday. With more time, this can really go on to get more compact and trouble the opponents in the league.
In a nutshell, Reds have shown enough reasons yesterdays for their fans to start dreaming of silverware soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5P3wZ10BuE