Less than 2 days til this and another chance at some early silverware. Adrian obviously coming in for Alisson. Hard to predict this line up. Will Matip come in? Can’t see the same midfield 3 starting 3 games in 10 days, so maybe Milner and Keita come in for Hendo and Gini. Think Bobby and Salah start and Mane may get the nod and treat this game as part of his preseason. I looked at that Chelsea line up on Sunday and thought they had so many weak areas, Zouma, Mount, Abraham, no Kante, but they played pretty well in the first have and should’ve been a couple of goals to the good. Second half though there was gaps all over the place, especially as Jorginho and Kovacic provided no cover or protection. Not sure if Kanté or Rudiger will be back, although they should not be taken lightly, if we are on our game, we could rip them to shreds.
Naby Keita left training with what appeared to be a muscle injury and walked straight to the dressing room with the physio David Maddock
Asked why Kante started among Chelsea’s substitutes against United, Lampard explained: ‘Kante was [out] purely because he had an injury. I am very aware of how important he is. ‘He picked up another small injury in the game, so we are assessing that. Lampard says that Willian (thigh) and Antonio Rudiger (knee) are both getting closer to full match fitness after missing Chelsea’s loss to United. ‘Willian and Rudiger are here and they are in different stages,’ Lampard said. ‘Willian is not far from fit, to put him on a high intensity match is tough. He will be working through this week on fitness. Tomorrow he will be on the bench. Similar with Rudiger.
Some balls this was hoping he’d start to kick start his season. Hopefully it’s not serious but he needs minding and the carry on in international duty during the summer didn’t help him.
See Lampard talking a lot about respecting this Liverpool team and how it will be different to the United game. I think this tells us they will take a pretty defensive approach to this. 11 behind the ball most likely. They aren't near our level but I don't think the United game is a fair representation of good/bad they are. This will be a tight affair
It is another trophy at stake, but I'd make a good few changes, to avoid 3 games in 9 days starting this early. I'd pick something like: Adrian Trent Matip Van Dijk Milner Lallana Gini Ox Shaqiri Origi Mane But I expect he will start at least 2 of Hendo, Fabinho, Bobby and Salah, if not all 4!
The charity shield I didn't really care much about once the game was over. This trophy is different, not sure why maybe it's an old historic thing but I want to win this since who knows when we might play in it again. I'd like to see Matip in for Gomez and Mane in for Origi, other than that it is as you were. We have been lucky with the fixture scheduling with 5 days rest as opposed to Chelsea's 3.
Looking forward to this, I agree that it is more prestigious than the Community Shield by it's very nature and we should be looking to add it to the trophy room. We will equal Real Madrid (4) with a win tonight too Hope to see Ox, Mane and Shaq play
Stats count in this. Goals, cards etc so unlike the community shield this is not a friendly . Just win the cup, keep the positivity going after Norwich and smash a very poor Southampton side on Saturday.
Yeah I want to win this too. Didn't really care about the community shield too much. This would be a nice one to win. At the same time would take a guaranteed extra 3 points in the league instead of it
I'd take a win tonight over 3 points on Saturday. We're going to drop points in a fair few games this season,we can make up for dropped points over the next 36 games. A win tonight is a guaranteed trophy,a recognised competitive one and if I'm not mistaken puts us back out in front as the most succesful English club in history.
I too would like to win this, a real feather in our cap to pick it up, there's very few trophies that you can just win in a one off game and it would help with building on this confidence that is hopefully taking hold with our football club that we are where we deserve to be. That being said if we don't win it it's obviously a worthless piece of silverware that doesn't really mean anything and 3 points at the weekend is much more important anyway.
Would be great to give Chelsea a good walloping. Can see Lampard going well defensive and taking Mourinho’s advice and playing more experienced players. Part of me was thinking on Sunday he left a lot of more experienced players to have them ready to win a trophy in mid week. You could imagine him taking about winning a trophy in his second competitive game for Chelsea and with his ego that would be more important than a tough league away game. Teams will be interesting.
I think he'll try to keep things a bit more compact but I don't see a big change in the way he wants them to play. We're a much more cohesive unit than ManU so I'd expect us to pin them in a lot more,but it will be hard for Lampard to sell his ideas to players if he abandons them in the second game of the season. They'll leave gaps in between the midfield and back 4 and they'll leave counter attacking opportunities. At least I hope they do
Playing the devil's advocate here: don't forget Man City got 100 points and 98 points in the last two season, so not winning on Saturday would make it extremely unlikely we will win the PL. But I would love to win tonight too. And to maintain our success of being European champions by adding another European trophy would be brilliant. It reminds me of the Limerick hurlers winning the National League last March
I've made my peace with the inevitability of us not being able to match City if they do what they've done for the last 2 seasons. If they do then win,lose or draw on Saturday it's extremely unlikely we will win the PL this season.
Buzzin for this game. I visited the bernabeau before CL and saw all their Super Cups and CL trophies Hopefully tonight we keeping our current trend on catching them Also, fcuk Chelsea and the Fat man