Two European giants will go head-to-head at Singapore’s National Stadium in Liverpool’s last friendly match of the summer.
The Reds clinched a comfortable 4-0 win over relegated Leicester in the opener of their Southeast Asia tour but face a significant jump in the standings as they meet a side who have just won their tenth title consecutive in the Bundesliga.
Bayern Munich is a club that Jurgen Klopp knows particularly well, having been the last manager to break the monopoly of German football by winning back-to-back league titles with Borussia Dortmund in 2011 and 2012.
Twelve months later, in the Champions League final at Wembley, they lost to Wednesday’s opposition but then prevailed against the German giants to guide Liverpool to a 3-1 victory at the Allianz Arena in 2019.
Let’s take a closer look at the game and some of the key stories. No reunion for Sadio
Anyone hoping for Sadio Mane to face his former teammates will be disappointed as the striker is expected to be the latest top name to join the Saudi Pro League.
Thomas Tuchel conceded in his pre-match press conference that Mane hadn’t reached his ‘full potential’ at Bayern and admitted the shortcomings had ‘hurt’ him.
The former Liverpool No.10 will join former Middle East colleagues Jordan Henderson and Fabinho and will unfortunately not feature in Wednesday’s friendly after leaving Anfield 12 months ago.
Move forward to keep shooting?
While there may be defensive issues to work out, the Reds haven’t been short of goals at the other end so far this summer. Liverpool scored 12 goals in their opening three pre-season matches, four of which were scored by Darwin Nunez in just 135 minutes of play.
The manager will be happy with what he sees in the future, but at the same time hopes to repeat his side’s clean sheet against Leicester.
Selection headache
After a 4-4 draw with Greuther Furth, Klopp revealed it would be the last time we saw any major changes at half-time this pre-season.
This proved not to be true, all 10 players on the pitch made way for those on the bench and Alisson replaced Caoimhin Kelleher just 15 minutes later.
With the start of the Premier League season fast approaching, it will be interesting to see if the majority of the minutes will be devoted to those likely to start against Chelsea on August 13th. We expect several players to have at least an hour of “leg minutes”.
Also beware of Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai starting together.
Expected XI: Alisson, Alexander-Arnod, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson, Jones, Mac Allister, Szoboszlai, Salah, Nunez, Jota
Also beware of Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai starting together.
Expected XI: Alisson, Alexander-Arnod, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson, Jones, Mac Allister, Szoboszlai, Salah, Nunez, Jota
How to watch
The match will kick off at 12:30 (BST), 19:30 Singapore time.
You can watch the full match live on LFCTV here, or you can follow the action with us on the This Is Anfield live blog, available on our website just before kick-off.
