LIVERPOOL VS STRASBOURG: PREVIEW

After clinching the Community Shield last night, Liverpool wrap up their pre-season preparations ahead of the new Premier League season with a fixture against French Ligue 1 side Strasbourg. Here’s a quick preview.

You can relive the Community Shield with our player ratings and match review.

It is sure to be a sold out crowd tonight as this will be the first match at Anfield in over two months. Sure none of the starters from last night will feature, but with the depth at the manager’s disposal, there will still be some exciting faces.

Yesterday went pretty much according to plan, tonight will be a chance to afford the rest of the squad minutes to get up to speed ahead of the opening Premier League fixture. We could see a couple of players get the full 90 minutes here.

It will be interesting to see if someone like Darwin will be involved given how intense he played in his 30 something minutes he was on the pitch last night. It’s unlikely you’d think. Aside him, the rest of the substitutes (used and unused) should all get minutes tonight.

This will be the Reds’ fifth and final pre-season friendly (although a behind closed doors friendly has been arranged against Aston Villa next week). It has become a bit of a custom for the team to finalise their pre-season each summer with an Anfield friendly.

Strasbourg themselves have gone through three friendlies so far, after seeing one against FC Basel cancelled. They beat Sporting Charleroi 2-1, drew 2-2 with Brentford and lost 2-1 to Italian side Cagliari on Wednesday.

They kick off their Ligue 1 season at home to AS Monaco next weekend as they look to build on their impressive sixth place finish last season. This is their last pre-season friendly of the summer as well, so both sides are on the same schedule fitness wise.

It should be a decent workout, with Jürgen Klopp likely to hand opportunities to a few of the Academy youngsters, alongside the senior first team players currently on the fringes.

Team News

Jota and Oxlade-Chamberlain both remain unavailable, though it was good to see Diogo pick up a medal last night. Kelleher is still a few weeks away from a return to training whilst Alisson could be involved as he is expected to start at Fulham next week.

If last night was too soon for him then tonight could be a chance to get some action before Fulham. Fullbacks Tsimikas and Ramsay are both unlikely to be available as they continue to work their way back from injury.

Predicted XI:

Alisson, Mabaya, Konaté, Gomez, Milner, Bajcetic, Keita, Morton, Elliott, Carvalho, Jones.