LIVERPOOL VS CRYSTAL PALACE: PREVIEW

After 44 days without a Liverpool match to sink our teeth into, we get two in the space of three days. After the 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Manchester United on Tuesday, the Reds face off against another Premier League opponent tomorrow.

This time it’s Patrick Vieira’s Crystal Palace side, with the fixture taking place in Singapore. Jürgen Klopp and his men landed in Singapore yesterday morning and have had a couple of training sessions ahead of the game.

Just like the Bangkok Century Cup in Thailand, this trip presents a chance to lift the 2022 Standard Chartered Singapore Trophy, with kickoff slated for 1.35pm BST at the Singapore National Stadium.

Pre-season trophies aren’t what we’re in it for, but we are where we are. The manager himself is rightly prioritising fitness building over results. After all, these are glorified training sessions.

It means the world however for the fans in attendance. It is their chance to catch the Reds live. The turnout for the open training sessions only go to show just how large Liverpool’s reach across the globe is.

For Palace, it’s been a bit of a mess of a pre-season so far. Their 26-man travelling squad for this tour only features 11 senior players, with youngsters from the club’s academy making up the majority of the squad.

Several stars – including Wilfried Zaha, Christian Benteke, Marc Guehi, Eberechi Eze and Cheikhou Kouyate remained in London for domestic training and warm-up games, with the club saying they were either not fit or did not meet entry requirements for Singapore or Australia.

Whilst Vieira hopes this will be an eye opening experience for the youngsters, he’s admitted it’s less than ideal preparations for the upcoming campaign. Liverpool don’t have any such issues however, with Jürgen Klopp handing minutes to a raft of his first teamers.

A total of 32 players players took to the pitch against United, with all outfielders getting half an hour under their belts. The plan is to slowly increase those minutes with each passing game. The manager hinted as much today when speaking about the game.

“Some might get 45 minutes tomorrow, we have to see, but again it’s the period of the year where we have to be really careful with different things. These are our footballers, these are the only boys we have. We have a lot of them but these are the only ones we have so we have to take care and we bring them in the best possible situation.”

It should still be a good test, even with Palace fielding mostly youngsters. It’s another chance to catch a glimpse of Fabio Carvalho and Darwin Nunez after the duo made their debuts on Tuesday in Thailand. They will both hope to break their duck tomorrow.

Team News

Diogo Jota has unfortunately picked up what looks like a recurrence of the hamstring injury he suffered on international duty last month. He is set to undergo a scan to ascertain the severity of this latest setback.

Alisson Becker also felt something earlier today in training and is unlikely to be risked tomorrow. Joe Gomez and Frauendorf also left the session early after picking up knocks. It is unknown yet if they will be available.

It should still be a strong team available to the manager, with the regulars likely to get a half each. As a result, we could see less youngsters thrown in.

Predicted XI:

Adrian, Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson, Henderson, Elliott, Carvalho, Salah, Nunez, Diaz.