Time for Liverpool’s Pre-season to really kick-off

Good morning, folks. Less about paper talk today and more about today’s match against Roma later on tonight in today’s post.

Fabio Borini could make his debut

So, it appears that Fabio Borini and the EURO 2012 boys (including Gerrard, Carroll and company) returned to training yesterday. Really good sign, and the way I see it, the more time that they have training and playing together, the better the team will become. Pre-seasons essentially make or break entire Premier League campaigns, with football being a game where momentum is really important.

But it’s really time for Liverpool’s pre-season to kick off properly. The first time we had a match against Toronto FC, and I think that the boys in red should have put in a better showing. I’m saying this considering the fact that they were playing their academy and reserve players too, so it was essentially a like-for-like matchup. Of course we could have done better with a couple of our internationals, but those are the matches where the reserve/fringe players should really come out and make their case for playing for the first team.

At least today we’ll catch around 15-30 minutes of the internationals playing against Italian side AS Roma. Realistically a better gauge of how our team is looking, given that we know how strong their players are, and who their team should roughly comprise of.

Ideally, Liverpool should start out with Brad Jones at the back, with Martin Kelly and Jose Enrique out wide in defence. I reckon that Rodgers will go with a pairing of Carragher and Sama, one experienced and one younger player, and I’m pretty sure he’ll do that to please the crowd.

In the midfield, the starting XI should comprise of Alberto Aquilani, Jonjo Shelvey and Jay Spearing, the three who need to prove themselves the most in the middle of the park (and ready to play in terms of fitness). The three up front should be Nathan Eccleston (or Fabio Borini, depending on how ready he is), supported by Raheem Sterling and Joe Cole. That would be my starting eleven for tonight’s game in Boston.

Feel free to leave your thoughts on who should start tonight.

Two more things I would like to discuss today as well, first being Joe Allen and second being Andy Carroll. Liverpool have reportedly struck an agreement with Swansea over a fee for the Team GB midfielder. According to reports from England, a fee of about 13.5 million pounds is (set to be) agreed, and the deal will indeed go through. This will certainly open the exit door for a number of Liverpool midfielders, with Aquilani requiring to show Rodgers that he can play tiki-taka football in the next few weeks.

The big man needs to be given a chance

Andy Carroll is the last thing I will be talking about today, quite simply because I think that he has been treated really unfairly by Rodgers. Let’s get to the bottom line first:

• Had it not been for his persistence, he wouldn’t be with the club anymore
• He hasn’t had a single training session under Rodgers
• Rodgers hasn’t seen Carroll in a tiki-taka system
• They’ve only had one conversation prior to his arrival in America – this being a singular phone call.

The way that he talks about Carroll in comparison to Martin Skrtel shows almost how desperately he wants to get rid of Andy Carroll. On Carroll he ruled out a loan deal, but he will listen to offers, whilst for Skrtel he has come out to say that Skrtel is one of the key players at Liverpool, and he will fight to keep him.

Why such a big contrast? This will only lower bids from other teams coming in for Carroll. Second of all, he is already showing that he is not planning to give Carroll a chance before shipping him away, I just think that we should see what he has to say in pre-season before coming to a decision. Players can adapt. He’s a 35 million pound player, and judging by his performances towards the tail-end of the 2011/12 campaign and EURO 2012, we need to give him a chance.