Liverpool Players Out on Loan

There are 12 Liverpool players out on loan at the moment, most players being youngsters. This is how a few of them are getting on at the temporary clubs.

Leighton Clarkson- currently on loan in the SPFL at Aberdeen, he has had a flying start with his new team, netting 2 goals in 3 games and both goals being stunning finishes. His performances have been brilliant overall and he is showing great potential. 

Tyler Morton- on loan at Blackburn, he has had a great start at the club playing regularly in the first team and mainly in the two man midfield Blackburn play. However, Morton has recently been used as a centre back for Blackburn and his performance was described as “boss”. 

Conor Bradley- he is currently on loan at Bolton, playing regular first team football as he makes the team over other right backs in the squad. In the 5 games that he has played for Bolton he has already scored 2 goals and his performances have been class. He is making a good impression on the fans and the coaching staff. 

James Balagizi- playing in league 2 at Crawley Town, he has played a total of 6 matches and he has racked up 3 goals overall and has been gifted praise from the Crawley Town manager describing his performances as ‘phenomenal’ and publicly asking Liverpool if they can keep the 19 year old permanently. 

All the players are finding first team football and are playing regularly at there clubs and gaining that well needed experience for there futures in football. 

Match day

It’s a very big match day today as Liverpool will be facing Manchester United at Old Trafford tonight. Both sides are not in the best form so it will be a test tonight. 

Liverpool have drawn there first 2 games of the new season against Fulham and Crystal Palace. They sit in 15th after 2 games but they have a game in hand, so a win tonight would put the Reds back up the table into 6th place. 

Manchester United have lost there first 2 games of the season, on the opening weekend they lost 2-1 to Brighton and the in the second Matchday they got demolished by Brentford in a 4-0 loss. They are yet to actually score a goal as the goal in there 2-1 loss was an own goal. They sit 19th and a win would potentially put them into 13th place. 

Injury issues for Liverpool are still very big, however, Firmino is expected to be back in the squad for tonight’s game which is a big boost for the reds. Plus, Naby Keita, who was left out the squad against Palace last week due to illness, is expected to be back in the squad for the game too. 

A win would get Liverpool off to there winning ways again and would start to push them back up the table, the last couple of games hasn’t been good at all so the form needs to pick up. 

GW3 Predictions

Going into the third week of the 22/23 Premier League season, these are my predictions for the games. 

Tottenham 2-0 Wolves

Everton 1-2 Forrest 

Leicester 1-1 Southampton 

Fulham 1-2 Brentford 

Crystal Palace 0-1 Aston Villa 

Bournemouth 0-4 Arsenal 

West Ham 1-1 Brighton 

Leeds 1-2 Chelsea 

Newcastle 2-2 Man City 

Man United 0-2 Liverpool 

The Result

10 men Liverpool draw their second game in a row for the start of the 22/23 Premier League season with a 1-1 draw with Palace at Anfield last night. 

Starting the game, Klopp put out Nat Phillips at the back alongside Virgil Van Dijk at centre back. Many though Joe Gomez would be starting but Phillips beat Gomez to it. However, this may have been a mistake due to the Zaha goal that was conceded by Liverpool. 

A through ball from the Palace midfield goes straight past Nat Phillips and Zaha runs onto the ball. Beating Phillips for pace he runs on to score a decent goal to put Palace 1-0 up. I believe that Gomez at the back would have prevented this goal due to his pace. 

Things got worse for the Reds in the 57th minute of the game when Darwin Nuñez got sent off for head butting Crystal Palace centre back Andersen. 

In response to going 1 man down, Liverpool reacted very well. 4 minutes after the red card, Luis Diaz made a brilliant run through 4/5 Palace defenders and, from the edge of the box, tried his luck for a goal. This ended in an amazing finish to put the Reds level with 29 mins to go. 

However, Liverpool couldn’t find the winning goal. This meant that they had drawn their first 2 games of the season and sit 12th after 2 games of the season. 

It’s quite disappointing to see the Reds drawing to opposition like Fulham and Crystal Palace. They are both sides that we should be beating 3/4-0 at the end of the day. It’s not the start to the season we would have wanted but we will hopefully pick it up in the next few games and climb back to where we belong. 

We will now be without Nuñez for the next 3 games as well which may be quite a big loss but having Firmino, Carvalho, Elliot etc would give Klopp options in the mean time. 

Liverpool vs Palace: Matchday

It’s the second Matchday for the Reds in the new 22/23 Premier League season, the first back at Anfield. The game kicks off at 8pm tonight.

First of all, let’s look at tonight’s opposition. Last week they lost 2-0 to Arsenal. However, they did not look like a bad team at all and I believe they didn’t deserve to not score. Coming to Anfield tonight, they would be looking to play us on the counter which wouldn’t be hard for them due to there quick attackers. 

My team predictions for tonight. I would go for Alisson, Trent, Vigil, Gomez, Robbo, Fabinho, Elliot, Keita, Salah, Nuñez, Diaz. Due to injury to Matip, Gomez is near enough 100% down to start next to Van Dijk at the back. I think having that midfield would be good for us, Keita and Elliot can get forward and they are also technical players, then Fabinho drop back and defend more. The front 3 is based on form for me, you cannot leave Nuñez out after his last few performances and then Salah and Diaz wouldn’t be swapped. 

My score predictions would be 2-0 to Liverpool. But I would like to see the Reds score a few more than that to show that last weeks performance was a one off. 

First Home Game of The Season

Tomorrow, Liverpool face Crystal Palace at Anfield for the first time this season. However, Jurgen Klopp has been hit with injuries so early on in the season, plus there is a dilemma on who starts up front. 

This week, Jurgen Klopp was hit with the news that centre back, Joel Matip, has been ruled out for Monday’s game due to injury. This means that Joe Gomez is most likely to start alongside Virgil Van Dijk at centre half due to Ibrahima Konate also being injured. 

A bit of good news for Klopp, Naby Keita is back from his injury that was picked up during Pre Season, he comes back just as Thiago goes out due to injury. 

Now for Klopp’s dilemma up top. Should he start Darwin Nuñez for his Anfield debut? I believe that he should start over Firmino today. Bobby looked off last week and once Nuñez came on the whole game changed completely, so Nuñez should start.

I would also love to see Carvalho start today and Harvey Elliot’s. Both players have shown amazing potential and are looking close to starters at the moment. 

GW2 Predictions

These are my predictions for the second game week in the 22/23 EPL season. 

Aston Villa 2-1 Everton 

Southampton 1-2 Leeds United 

Arsenal 2-1 Leicester City 

Brighton 1-0 Newcastle United 

Man City 4-0 Bournemouth 

Wolves 1-2 Fulham

Brentford 0-1 Man United 

Nottingham Forrest 0-2 West Ham 

Chelsea 1-3 Tottenham

Liverpool 2-0 Crystal Palace 

Last week I got a few right and some very very close. Let’s see how close I am this week! 

Liverpool Injury Update

After injuries carrying over from Pre Season, the reds have been affected quite negatively due to the high number of players that are out injured. However a few players are back very shortly. 

Kostas Tsimikas is likely to be fit for the game against Crystal Palace on Monday. He was out due to a knock on his knee that he picked up in a friendly against RB Salzburg last month. 

Naby Keita has this week returned from illness, he comes back just after Thiago goes out with a hamstring injury for 6 weeks. 

Curtis Jones is expected back towards the end of the month, this would give Klopp an extra option in midfield. Jones was out due to a calf injury that he picked up in Pre Season. 

Ibrahima Konate is expected to be out of action for the next month due to his injury. We are not too clear on what the injury is yet but it is on his right leg. 

Due to the players coming back from injury soon and the current options, it looks like Liverpool will wait until next summer to make a midfielder signing. 

Interest in Matheus Nunes

In the past few days, it has come out that Liverpool would be looking at the possibility of signing a new midfielder due to the amount of injuries in the position. One of the players that Liverpool have been monitoring  is Brazilian (playing for Portugal) Matheus Nunes who plays for Portuguese giants, Sporting Lisbon. 

Nunes is a 23 year old, central defensive midfielder who plays as a number 8 for Sporting Lisbon, he has a similar style of play to Thiago due to his technique and passing abilities. He would fit perfectly into the Liverpool team as well due to the fact that he plays in a 4-3-3 formation at Lisbon. 

Nunes is also 6ft tall so that is another benefit as he can easily win headers in the centre of the park.

As well as his attacking and passing abilities, Nunes can track back and is smart about his decisions for when to intercept and tackle a player to win the ball. 

Signing for Lisbon in 2019, he has played a total of 75 games, racking up 19 goals and 12 assists and he has only missed 1 game due to injury and the injury was Coronavirus. 

Looking at Nunes’ style of play, he looks like a great fit at Liverpool and he could even be the missing piece to the puzzle. Plus, his lack of injuries is a great sign which Klopp and his team should look at. 

Personally, I think we should go for him and it sorts out problems out for the midfield position for now. However, this may mean that Bellingham is out of the picture for next year as a new midfielder won’t be required. 

Midfield options at Liverpool

With Thiago out injured, Naby Keita being injury prone, James Milner coming into his last years as a player, Jordan Henderson declining in form and players leaving, Liverpool will have to be looking at a new midfielder for the future. 

Yesterday, Thiago was ruled out for the next 6 weeks and will be missing some very important games in the league. Luckily, Naby Keita has just come back from injury and will be back in training this week. 

According to Fabrizio Romano, Liverpool will be looking at midfield options if the right players comes along this summer. This would be very helpful for the club, giving them more options for when players are out injured. 

Harvey Elliot and Fabio Carvalho are both midfield players who could fill the gaps there but also they are very young and maybe not experienced enough to be playing every game, plus they are both very attacking players. However, they will definitely in the future. 

I believe we should go for a midfielder to give more options and fill the gaps when our midfielders are injured. We know Thiago is injury prone so we need that gap to be filled. 

I think Matheus Nunes or Nicolas Barella would both be great fits at Liverpool, they are similar in there playing styles to Thiago so would fit perfectly. 

Fulham vs Liverpool

So Saturday marked the start of Liverpool’s 22/23 EPL campaign and unfortunately it started with a 2-2 draw with newly promoted side Fulham at Craven Cottage. 

Uncharacteristically, Liverpool started the game slow, they didn’t have many chances and sloppy passes caught them off-guard leading to chances for Fulham. 

After a few attempts, Serbian international, Aleksander Mitrovic, gave Fulham the lead in the 32nd minute through a rifling header into the top of the net, beating  Alisson. 

Going towards half time, Liverpool started to create chances. Luis Diaz hit the post, he also scored a lovely goal which was unfortunately ruled as offside, but they went into halftime 1-0 down. 

Coming back out at halftime, Liverpool had started attacking a lot more and starting to look like themselves again. In the 51st minute, Klopp brought in Darwin Nuñez and Harvey Elliot, changing the game. 

Nuñez had a few chances saved in the first few minutes of coming on, but, after 11 minutes of playing, he finished off a lovely Mo Salah cross with a flick over the keeper. A lovely goal! 

However, just 9 minutes later. Virgil Van Dijk brought down Mitrovic in the penalty area leading to the referee, Andy Madley, pointing to the penalty spot. Then, the penalty was slotted away by Mitrovic again to put Fulham 2-1 up. 

The tension really started to build as Liverpool for trying hard to find an equaliser in the last 15 minutes. And a break down the right hand side, in the 80th minute, finally lead to this equaliser. A divine ball across goal by Nuñez lead to a Salah finish and hope was given to the Liverpool team in the last 10. 

Liverpool were really looking to score another goal and win their first game of the season. 6 minutes of added time was given by Andy Madley and more and more chances were made by the Reds. In the 94th minute, Harvey Elliot teed up Jordan Henderson on the outside of the box, he strikes the ball and a dipping shot beats the keeper but rattles the crossbar and into safety for Fulham. Heartbreak for Liverpool in the final seconds. 

The whistle blew. The home crowd cheered. The game was finished 2-2. It’s not the best start for Liverpool, but they really need to pick it up for the rest of the season. 

They will play their first game at Anfield on Monday next week against Crystal Palace, who lost 2-0 to Arsenal this weekend. 

Fulham vs Liverpool

It’s the first Matchday of the season for the Reds today! They will be travelling to London to face Fulham at Craven Cottage at 12:30. 

In the week, Klopp has ruled out French centre back Konate for the game. He picked up an injury in Sundays friendly against RC Strasbourg. He will most likely be back in the next couple of weeks. 

There is good news in that Alisson Becker is back in goal today. He was out in the last few games of Pre Season as he picked up and injury. 

The team put out by Klopp will be a strong win no doubt. Nuñez may have his first Premier League start ever and Carvalho may even get to face his former side today. 

Score predictions for the game, I have gone for 3-0 Liverpool. 

My Match-day 1 Predictions

The 2022/23 EPL season starts today with Arsenal meeting Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. So with the start of the season I would like to share my predictions for all the games in GW1.

Crystal Palace 1- 4 Arsenal 

Fulham 0- 3 Liverpool 

Bournemouth 1- 2 Aston Villa

Newcastle 2- 0 Nottingham Forrest 

Tottenham 3- 1 Southampton 

Leeds 2- 2 Wolves 

Everton 1- 3 Chelsea

Leicester 1- 0 Brentford 

Manchester United 1- 1 Brighton 

West Ham 2- 3 Manchester City 

Very excited about the new season! Just saying, these results are from my personal opinion. 

My Premier League Predictions Explained

Before I list where I think teams will finish in the table I would like to say that this is my own opinion and people will have their own opinions too. 

Here’s my prediction: 

20th- Bournemouth: They haven’t made many signings to bolster there squad and they aren’t looking sharp enough for the EPL.

19th- Fulham: I think they have made a few good signings in the window but they have done this before and went straight back down. 

18th- Brentford: A controversial one I know, not many have gone for them but I believe that they will go back down this season. We saw it with Sheffield United a few seasons back, they had an amazing season then in there second season in the EPL they struggled and went back down, I think this will be the same for Brentford. 

17th- Everton: They offloaded Richarlison, there best player, to Spurs and they haven’t made many signings and the signings they’ve made are not great. They have looked poor in Pre Season too. 

16th- Southampton: They brought in a couple of players including Joe Aribo but I can’t see them going any higher than 16th or any lower. 

15th- Leeds: They have offloaded 2 of there most important players but then again they have brought in a lot of new players to cover these positions and bolster t there squad. 

14th- Nottingham Forrest: I think with the amount of players they have brought in, it will take them time to gel together but after they have gelled and played together I think this team will do well. 

13th- Brighton: They had a record breaking season for themselves last season but they have brought 2 young players in, 1 has left on loan for the season. They offloaded a lot of players too including arguably there best player, Yves Bissouma. 

12th- Crystal Palace:  I believe they will struggle a bit this year but then again I think they will do decent. That’s why I have put them around mid table. 

11th- Wolves: I like the Wolves team, they have a lot of good players that will get there chance this season. I believe they will do alright in the league but not as high as they were a few seasons ago. 

10th- Aston Villa: I think after a full first Pre Season training camp with Gerrard, they will do a lot better than last season. I think with the players they have, they will challenge teams next season. 

9th- Newcastle: I think after bringing so many players in last season, they need time to adjust and use all the players. A full Pre Season will bring the club’s performances up. 

8th- Leicester: They’re one of those teams that always do well, I rate them a lot and I like Brendon Rodgers and what he has done with the club. I think they’ll have another decent season as they have some top players, however they may struggle without Schmeichel. 

7th- West Ham: I think they will do good in the league, they have some top players and a few young players who will have breakthrough seasons. I think they will get the Conference League place this season. 

6th- Manchester United: I think Ten Hag will need more time with his new team, he needs all his players to understand the system, so I believe this season will be a low blow but the next season they will cause chaos. 

5th- Chelsea: They have brought in a quality centre back but he is at the latter stages of his career. They haven’t made anymore super signings and I think because of that they will struggle to play next season. 

4th- Tottenham: With the amount of quality signings that they have brought in, they will be a side to look out for next season, however with them being back in the UCL I think they will struggle with all the games. 

3rd- Arsenal: After the monster Pre Season that they have had, I believe Arsenal will smash it this year. Jesus looks sharp and he will only get better as he will gel with the team more and have more game time. 

2nd- Manchester City: I believe that they will finish behind Liverpool this year. It’s a controversial pick but I think it may be right. Having a proper number 9 will now mean City will have to change there style of play. It would then cause players to have to get used to this and some may fall behind leading to worse results. 

1st- Liverpool: This is not meant to be a biased pick, I genuinely believe the League will be ours because we were so sharp last season and we’ve brought in 3 class players to bolster the squad. It also means we can play in different formations and be less predictable for teams. However, losing Mane was a big hit. 

They are my EPL predictions for the 22/23 season. Remember this is my opinion and people are fine to have there own opinions

My EPL Predictions

Before I list where I think teams will finish in the table I would like to say that this is my own opinion and people will have their own opinions too. 

20th- Bournemouth 

19th- Fulham 

18th- Brentford

17th- Everton 

16th- Southampton 

15th- Leeds

14th Nottingham Forrest 

13th- Brighton 

12th- Crystal Palace

11th- Wolves

10th- Aston Villa

9th- Newcastle

8th- Leicester 

7th- West Ham 

6th- Manchester United 

5th- Chelsea 

4th- Tottenham 

3rd- Arsenal

2nd- Manchester City 

1st- Liverpool 

I think the top 2 will keep swapping throughout like always but Liverpool will come out on top I believe. 

Again, this is my personal opinion. 

I will release my explanations later on. 

Diogo Jota

Yesterday Diogo Jota signed a new 5 year deal with Liverpool. The contract comes with a new and improved wage as a reward for his progress whilst being at the club. 

Jota signed from Wolves for £41 million back in September 2020. Since then he has been a key player at Liverpool and has helped the Reds out in many games. 

The club have liked what they have seen from Jota so far and they offered him the new contract from his amount of individual progress and the contribution to Jurgen Klopp’s team. 

Last season, Jota scored a total of 21 goals in all competitions, including important goals in the League Cup to take Liverpool to the final where they then lifted the trophy. 

Jota has been sidelined for over a month due to a hamstring injury, he is set to be back in the next few weeks but it would mean he will miss the first few games of the season. 

We’re all looking forward to seeing Jota back, he is an important player and it would be nice to see him playing with the team again. 

The return of the Premier League

In just 4 days, we will be seeing Liverpool back in the Premier League! On top of that, they will be playing in the first game of the new campaign against Fulham at Craven Cottage. 

Jurgen Klopp has said that Alisson is set to be back for the first game of the season which is a big positive for the game. However, Diogo Jota, who will be getting a new updated contract very soon, is set to miss the first game as he is not fully fit. 

Ibrahima Konate limped off the pitch in the first friendly back at Anfield on Sunday. However, this was said to be a precaution and he will most likely be back for the match against Fulham. 

Looking at the game, Fulham have bulked up there squad quite a bit. They bought Kevin Mbabu, Andreas Perreira, Manor Solomon and Joao Palhinha. The signings are good for the club but we have seen this before with Fulham making lots of signings and then going straight back down. 

I believe Liverpool will win the game. It would be good to see a few goals for the Reds so that they have the chance to be top of the league from the start.