Andoni Iraola and his training staff were all present on the touchline which was wonderful to see knowing that the main event at Anfield was soon approaching. There were even a handful of senior players watching from the balcony and I’ll note that only Milos Kerkez and Dominik Szoboszlai stayed until the end.
I’m going to start by mentioning new signing Victor Munoz, this kid has pace to burn and is almost brutally direct. There are no Rio Ngumoha step overs but raw power and determination as well some nice switches of direction to throw the shadowing defenders off balance. Munoz also showed his ability with both feet in delivering good crosses and was Liverpool’s best attacking outlet.
The other starting winger was Harvey Elliott, a term that should be loosely used in describing his wide play because despite Iraola’s vocal instructions for Elliott to stay out wide he ignored him and continued to drift infield seeking the ball. This caused center forward Chiesa to have to go out wide on the right and leaving us with no focal point of attack. I really feel for Elliott after the way his past two seasons have gone but he needed to shake that all off yet it seems he is either vastly shot of confidence or he is trying too hard to be involved to the point he lacks discipline and broke the structure Iraola wanted.
The only other player I really feel is worth mentioning is Trey Nyoni who played the full 70 minutes and was vocally commanding at times during the second half as well positionally disciplined with good breaking up of play and forward passing. Very impressive for a young player who seems to have decided this is going to be his season to prove his worth and has given everything.
Beyond these observations Alexis Mac Allister played around sixty minutes and Wataru Endo played the full match as a center back with none of the senior center backs involved so we should see both new signings Jeremy Jacquet and Ronald Araujo get some playing time in the real friendly later.