This morning I had the privilege of seeing Liverpool's pre season tour match
against Roma at Fenway park in Boston.
Experimental is the best word to explain the Liverpool squad that started
this game with Carra, Shelvey, Cole and spearing the only players I would
consider to be in our first team. For a friendly the game was quite open. Both
teams passed the ball well and both team had a handful of half chances to score
with Joe Cole's effort chipping labront hitting the crossbar being the best
effort of the first half
Shelvey had a particularly active first half,causing Roma quiet a few
problems out side the box without really trouble the Roma keeper. This was also
the first time I got to see Cole and Aqualini in a red shirt in over a year.
Aqualini looked a little lost to me, but his work rate has improved greatly.
Cole hasn't changed, still a little firecracker just with a little less pace
nowadays.
It was no secret the Rodgers wanted to look at the whole squad, especially
the youth and fringe players. Pacheco, Morgan and sterling where especially
bright and it was great seeing them on tour with the whole squad.
The result aside I can see how Rodgers looking at the bigger picture here,
and a tour like this is the perfect way of getting to see his younger players
perform. We are very much a work in progress as a squad and learning the Rodgers
methodology will take time, but I was encouraged with what I sore from what was
virtually the reserves/youth team.
One last thing I would like to add is that although Fenway park is a
baseball stadium they did a great job of converting it into a football pitch
that allowed for safe and fluid football. The fans were also great, the
atmosphere was quiet good for a friendly and I was really pleased to see it be a
sell out.
Next we play Tottenham in our next tour match, it will be interesting to
see how Rodgers approaches this game. I have a feeling that we will see a lot
more of the senior players start the game with the youngsters coming on after
halftime and beyond simply as a test to measure us up against one of the teams
expect to be there, or there abouts this season. The game is on TV here so I
will be posting about that on its conclusion. Until then ywna.
pics: liverpoolfc.com
It was an ok performance, you could tell most of the Liverpool players were a bit short of fitness compared to Roma but it's early. Jay Spearing had a poor game in my opinion and Carra still looks a bit shakey at times. It was great to see Shelvey lively in the middle of the pitch, albeit it took him a while to get into the game.
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