In just six days, the FA Community Shield will be here, with Liverpool FC and Manchester City set to clash in the 2019-20 season curtain raiser. On Friday, the preview press conferences will be staged. That’s how close we are to getting the new season kicked off, and it’s clear that Liverpool are a long ways off from being ready.
The Reds went winless on their preseason exhibition tour of the United States, looking especially abysmal in the friendly loss to Borussia Dortmund at Notre Dame Stadium 10 days ago. Remember, it’s just preseason, and yes, the Reds have been missing many of their key players, due to international duty, but the results have still been difficult to watch this summer.
On Monday, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp explained why the preseason has yielded such dreadful results.
“I don’t want to find excuses before we play City,” the German said, “but we had a completely different preseason.”
“We played without six players and to say this must be the statement for us would be completely mad.”
“Good results in the pre-season help to build confidence but that’s not the most important thing. The most important thing is that you build the physical skills for a long, long season because we have to, pretty much, prepare only for the games.”
“There’s not a lot of time to train.”
Klopp is not concerned about the really bad results because he knows that he’ll soon see many of his biggest guns back into the arsenal of weaponry.
Monday brings Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Alisson, Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri all rejoining the team for preseason training in Evian, France.
Klopp described this upcoming week in Evian as the “most important of the season” as he looks to integrate all the stars and key pieces together into a cohesive unit before the games start to count for real.
“We had to do intense sessions in the first three weeks,” the manager of the reigning European champions continued.
“We played the games in different circumstances. It’s always been clear Evian would be the most important week of the season, and we have five days after City before Norwich.”
While the Community Shield is a glorified friendly to most, and doesn’t count all that much to some, it is still a trophy match.
So there is meaning, and it provides a kick-start to a season that will see Liverpool competing for multiple trophies.
Liverpool are coming off a season that saw them, in addition to winning their sixth Champions League title/European Cup, finish runner-up in the Premier League despite accruing the third most single season points in PL history.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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