Preston North End of the Championship defeated Liverpool 1-0 on Friday afternoon in a friendly played behind closed doors at the AXA Training Center.
Prior to the US tour, Arne Slot, the new head coach of Liverpool, received some selection advice during the team’s friendly loss to Preston North End. In a friendly played behind closed doors at the AXA Training Centre on Friday, the Championship team defeated the Reds 1-0, with Mohamed Salah starting the game for the majority of the team.
Salah, the afternoon captain, played for 45 minutes as Slot selected two entirely different lineups for each half. In the end, 25 players saw action in the ninety-minute match.
Liverpool’s last warm-up game before departing on their US tour on Tuesday is this one. They will play Real Betis early on Saturday morning, UK time, and then Manchester United and Arsenal, two of the Premier League’s opponents.
After returning to training earlier this week from his European Championship duties, Dominik Szoboszlai played 33 minutes against Preston; however, Andy Robertson, who was also back in Kirkby on Tuesday, did not play. The other first-team regulars who played were Wataru Endo, Conor Bradley, Harvey Elliott, Jarell Quansah, Kostas Tsimikas, Curtis Jones, and Harvey Elliott.
Starting at center-back beside Quansah was Sepp van den Berg, who has stated that he wants to depart this summer. During the first half, Ben Doak made his first appearance of the year at any level. Vitezslav Jaros, who also returned from Euro duty this week, started in goal for the first forty-five minutes until Harvey Davies took his place.
After Liverpool had created the early chances, Robbie Brady scored the sole goal for the visitors just before the half-hour mark with a strike against the run of play. Doak’s attempt was blocked, Salah’s volley went just wide, Elliott and Bradley’s attempts were deflected, and Doak’s header went off target while he was unmarked.
On minute 26, Elliott’s attempt to convert Salah’s inviting low cross came the closest for Liverpool. Brady took the ball away from the Reds defense and fired a quick long-range shot that deflected off the woodwork to give Preston the lead.
A significantly altered home squad found it difficult to generate many chances in the second half, however Luke Chambers and Lewis Koumas had chances, and Trey Nyoni’s late attempt was stopped, and Preston goalie Freddie Woodman saved Kaide Gordon’s low volley.
Bobby Clark and Jayden Danns, who both played for the first team last season, were not present, and Liverpool was without 11 of its 14 players who were on international service at the Copa America and European Championships.
LIVERPOOL: Jaros (Davies 46); Bradley (Stephenson 46), Van den Berg (Nallo 46), Quansah (Phillips 46), Tsimikas (Chambers 46 (Beck 75)); Jones (Bajcetic 46), Elliott (Morton 46), Szoboszlai (Endo 33 (Nyoni 75)); Doak (Koumas 46 (Blair 75)), Salah (Gordon 46), Carvalho (McConnell 46).
