Liverpool closed their summer with a 2-0 win over an ambitious Serie A side, a result that offered a sharper read on where the team stands heading into 2026\/27. Cody Gakpo and J\u00e9r\u00e9my Jacquet scored in the first half, while an earlier behind-closed-doors training match between the clubs finished goalless.<\/p>\n
The summer had brought plenty of change. Mohamed Salah had departed, the manager\u2019s role had changed, and more players had left than arrived. Preseason had also been uneven, with victories over Sunderland and Wrexham followed by damaging defeats to Leeds United and Monaco. In both losses, Liverpool led 2-0 before collapsing late.<\/p>\n
After the Monaco defeat, Andoni Iraola admitted the squad was short of the required physical level. \u201cRight now, we probably don\u2019t have much more [than 30 minutes], in terms of the levels required to play like this.\u201d He added that \u201cit will take time\u201d and that \u201cmore training\u201d was needed.<\/p>\n
The final friendly suggested improvement. Liverpool again built a 2-0 lead, but this time there was no second-half breakdown. It was only their second clean sheet of the summer, and the first against top-flight opposition. Even though Como had more possession, more shots, more shots on target and more corners, Liverpool held firm.<\/p>\n
There were encouraging signs throughout the side. Alexis Mac Allister returned in the closed-door game after his World Cup final involvement, while V\u00edctor Mu\u00f1oz also featured across the day. The matchday XI looked close to Liverpool\u2019s strongest available lineup, with Jacquet impressing alongside Virgil van Dijk after recovering from a summer injury setback.<\/p>\n
Jeremie Frimpong remained available, Milos Kerkez provided balance on the other flank, and Dominik Szoboszlai plus Ryan Gravenberch gave the midfield a stronger look. Rio Ngumoha filled the Salah-shaped space on the right, Cody Gakpo was effective on the left, and Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak had more room to build understanding centrally.<\/p>\n
The issue is what comes next. Ronald Ara\u00fajo made his unofficial debut from the bench, but with Joe Gomez unavailable and Giovanni Leoni still sidelined, Liverpool\u2019s defensive depth looks thin. Beyond that, the bench offered little first-team cover. The starting XI has a promising shape, but the wider squad still leaves questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool ended summer with signs of progress, but the depth behind the strongest XI still raises doubts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1162,178,242],"class_list":["post-18543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-friendly","tag-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}