Europa League qualifier preview: Liverpool v FK Rabotnicki
Amidst all the talk of takeovers and Torres, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Rich Backers Search, it has been easy to forget that there’s a football club at Anfield.
Off-field stories continue to dominate the headlines – pretty understandably given the time of year – but Liverpool are back in action on home turf tonight, as their early-season European odyssey continues with the second leg of the Europa League third qualifying round tie against the Macedonians FK Rabotnicki.
Words would have been ringing in Roy Hodgson’s ears ahead of the first encounter in Skopje last week – mostly “are we there yet?” due to the makeup of his virtually adolescent squad – but the new Liverpool manager’s somewhat controversial decision to take an extremely youthful line-up to eastern Europe paid off. A Lucas Leiva-captained Reds XI won 2-0 courtesy of two David Ngog goals, and so this second leg at home should be pretty academic, but Hodgson still plans to field as strong a team as possible.
With just 10 days to go until Arsène Wenger and Arsenal visit Anfield for both clubs’ opening match of the Premier League campaign, most of Hodgson’s key performers still have less than an hour of football in their legs this pre-season.
Steven Gerrard, Joe Cole, Jamie Carragher and Glen Johnson all played for at least a half in a friendly at Borussia Mönchengladbach at the weekend and all will start here; Cole for the first time at Anfield in Liverpool red after several appearances – and two goals – at the ground in Chelsea blue.
Maxi Rodriguez could even be involved just a week after his Reds career had looked over, while exciting Spanish youngster Dani Pacheco – the top scorer at the recent Uefa Under-19 European Championships – has been added to the squad. Wantaway midfielder Javier Mascherano hasn’t been registered for this stage of European competition, while neither have Fernando Torres, Pepe Reina, Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel, all of whom only returned to training at Melwood this week after their involvement in the squads that reached the World Cup final.
Hodgson is confident, and understandably so. “We'll play the strongest team that's possible to put out,” he said.
“We are stronger on paper than in the first game because players I couldn't consider for that game have now played at least 45 minutes on Sunday. That gives me a chance to throw them into the game. One or two are just back from holiday, so we won't risk them, but we will have a stronger squad on paper than the one we took to Skopje.
“We can play a stronger team this time and Cole, Gerrard, Carragher, Johnson and [Milan] Jovanović will all start the game. We also have Pacheco back after a very successful tournament with Spain and he is desperate to show us what a good player he is.”
All of which doesn’t bode well for Rabotnicki, who looked desperately poor in Skopje and never seriously threatened Liverpool’s stand-in goalkeeper Diego Cavalieri all night.
The young Reds cantered to a simple victory that night, and so adding more experience and quality to the line-up for the return leg at Anfield points to only one result.
Cushioned by the insurance of their 2-0 lead from the first leg, expect Liverpool to adopt an all-out attacking style tonight.
The off-field search for the pot of gold continues.
On the pitch, tonight should see a lot of goals.
Prediction: Liverpool 4 FK Rabotnicki 0
Tags: