Neco Williams’ Departure

Neco Williams has announced that he is leaving the club after 15 year to look for a “new challenge”.

He announced on Twitter that’s it has been an “honour” to play for the club and that he “will always continue to support the club“. 

This is after he is expected to complete his medical for Nottingham Forrest ahead of his £17 million move to the newly promoted side. 

Neco will be missed, he has provided good moments for the club such as the assist for the Origi’s last minute goal in the 5-5 League Cup win for Liverpool where they won on penalties in the end. 

He has been with the club for 15 years and will now move on to build his career, all the best Neco!

PreSeason Squad

The travelling squad: Adrian, Alexander-Arnold, Alisson, Bajcetic, Carvalho, Chambers, Clark, Clarkson, H. Davies, Diaz, Elliott, Fabinho, Firmino, Frauendorf, Gomez, Henderson, Hill, Jones, Jota, Keita, Konate, Mabaya, Matip, Milner, Morton, Mrozek, Norris, Nunez, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Phillips, Robertson, Salah, Thiago, Tsimikas, Van den Berg, Van Dijk, R. Williams. 

In the squad there is a range of different ages, young and old. The younger players will gain good, well needed experience from the trip and they will get game time throughout. 

It will be good to see some of the younger players and see what they have to offer, I am personally excited to see Frauendorf after has had 2 brilliant seasons with the youth teams. 

Salah, Van Dijk, Jota, Alexander-Arnold and a few more players are ones who will train for the first time with the team since the season ended, they have travelled from there holidays straight to Bangkok to join the team. 

I am also excited to see the new signings. I think everyone is waiting to see Nunez train and play because he is an expensive signing and he is only just back in training. 

It’s an exciting PreSeason this year because of all the youth. Let’s wait and see what happens and let’s hope some of the younger players can show they are ready for the step up in the near future. 

Virgil Van Dijk

Today is Virgil Van Dijk’s 31st birthday and for it I wanted to bring back some of his best moments. 

From his debut against Everton back in January 2018 where he played a dominant game and where he scored his first goal in his first game to give Liverpool the sun in the FA Cup Merseyside Derby. The score was 2-1 and what a mark he left for his future, from then we all knew. 

Then he went into having a brilliant debut season at Liverpool, proving to the world why the Reds pud so much money for him. In his first season, he playing in his first ever Ucl Final. He played well, fighting off Ronaldo but unfortunately losing the game due to some goalkeeping mistakes. 

After this, he began to really show that he is the best defender in the world. 2 dominant seasons in the centre half role led to everyone looking at him as a beast. Playing in his second Ucl Final in 2 years he played an amazing game, making goal stopping tackles to keep a clean sheet. 

The next season, winning the league with the Reds and once again keeping up with his world-class status. However, an ACL injury came across him in October 2020 leading to him missing the rest of the poor 20/21 season where Liverpool finished 3rd. 

Coming back into the 21/22 season, it looked like he had never left. He came back into brilliant performances against top sides. He won 2 trophies last season and finished 2nd with Liverpool in both the Ucl and the Pl. 

What a player! Many more years left for Big Virg at Liverpool. 

Contract Renewal News

There are a few contracts that are going to be signed in the next few weeks, including the likes of Jota, Keira and Joe Gomez. 

To start, we have Joe Gomez. In the past few days his agent and the club have been coming to an agreement on a new contract. It looks like that, just today, an agreement has been reached and Gomez will sign a new long term deal with the club.

Next we have Jota. Since arriving from Wolves in 2020, he has been a very significant play to the club and that has led to Liverpool putting him in for a large pay rise. 

Lastly, Naby Keita will be going into talks with the club to renew his contract. He is on his last year this season of his current contract, so the club will try to reach an agreement with him to keep him longer.

Since finding form after his long run of injuries, the Guinean midfielder has impressed the fans and Liverpool, making it important to keep him. 

The lactate test at Liverpool

So I’m the pre-season at Liverpool players take part in a test called the lactate test. 

The test involves running full out, getting from one set up pole to the next before the whistle blows. However, the length of time between whistles shortens with each interval, so the players need to run faster each time. Then, since that wasn’t enough fun, between intervals, the players have blood drawn from their ear to get their lactate levels tested.

Taking the lactate levels would show the amount of lactic acid that the players have in their muscles after using them for certain amounts of times. 

This year, it was also linked to asthma technology with the introduction of fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) testing using analysis technology. FeNO testing is typically used in diagnosing asthma. So this would be used to check if the players have any other issues the club need to worry about.

So this year there was a surprise winner in the lactate running test…. Not. 

The winner for the 7th time in a row was 36 year old James Milner. He has won every single year since he joined the club in 2015. He is truly a machine. 

The Preseason Schedule

So this week, preseason begun back at the AXA Training Centre in Kirby. There are a few weeks left until the Community Shield game against Man City in Leicester. So here is what will be happening. 

Yesterday, most of the first team arrived back including 2 of the new summer signings, Ramsay and Carvalho. But we are still yet to see some of the players such as Vigil, Mo, Nunez and more. It is expected that all of the players will return by the end of the week. 

On July 10th, the team will fly out to Thailand for the friendly against Manchester United which is on July 12th, then out to Singapore for there game against Crystal Palace on July 15th. Then they will go back into Europe for there fans against RB Leipzig in Germany on July 21st, then to Austria and then back to England for the Community Shield. 

It’s a busy schedule for Liverpool, but most of the games will include youth players and second team players. They will have a chance for game time and to show that they are more important to the team. 

I’m looking forward to see the team fully back and let’s hope they can win the Community Shield, it’s another possible trophy for the cabinet and another trophy to take away from City.  

Preseason: Day 1

It was the first day of preseason today and lots of faces arrived back at the AXA Training Centre with a few more to come back later this week. 

3 new faces arrived today. 

Calvin Ramsay being one, the 18 year old joining the club a few weeks ago will have a big preseason ahead of him to prove he is a worthy back up for Trent at right back. 

Another new face is Fabio Carvalho. He officially signed for the club on Friday and was announced as a signing only yesterday. He is also 18 years old and he will be an exciting player to see this preseason. 

Another new face however was not a new signing, it is 18 year old left back Luke Chambers who recently won the U19’s Euros with England. He comes in as he has been seen as a brilliant talent. He will play in games this preseason and show that he is also worthy of being an option for the first team. 

I am looking forward to seeing preseason games because of the new talents that are involved so far. I am excited to see any youth players coming up and having there chance in the first team. I am also excited for the new signings to play too. 

Best games I went to Last Season: No1

April 16th 2022. Our second trip to London for football in the season had arrived. The sense of summer had hit and the day was lovely. 

1pm. We had arrived at the stadium on a full train, no City fans in sight. The atmosphere even outside of the stadium was calm and enjoyable. The Liverpool fan park was full to the brim (I was I could say the same about City’s) and Reds were singing for hours to come. 

Walking into the stadium, an echo of voices hit me from the stairs up to the concourse. All the way up, the singing continued, my voice was nearly gone before we had even got to our seats. 

Arriving to my seat, I could already see so many more Liverpool fans than City fans and a huge flag covering around 1000 seats was placed on the Man City side behind the cameras to show that they had not sold enough tickets. 

The game kicked off after a raging You’ll Never Walk Alone filled London. 9 minutes in Ibou scored his second goal that week to open the scoring. This is only the start. 8 minutes later, Mane had capitalised onto Stefan’s mistake and scored the second, then just before half time Mane finished off an amazing build up and a spectacular volley to score his brace and put Liverpool 3-0 up at half time. 

The atmosphere throughout the first half was amazing, nonstop singing led the boys to score 3 goals. Then, this atmosphere continued in the concourse at half time. 15 minutes of singing and all I need to say is, I’m So Glad That Jürgen Is A Red! 

2 late goals from City in the second half gave the Reds a shock but luckily they could not find an equaliser. They were down and out! Liverpool we’re through to the FA Cup final and everyone knew they would win it after that performance! 

What a day and what a game!  

Curtis Jones

I wanted to take a look into one of our scousers, Curtis Jones.

Jones joined Liverpool at the age of 9. Going up through the academy, he made his U23’s debut age 17 and then signed his professional contract for Liverpool. He made his senior debut in an FA Cup game against Wolves in 2019, aged 18. 

On January 5th 2020, Jones became the youngest player to score in a Merseyside Derby since Fowler in 1994 after scoring a screamer against Everton. 3 weeks later he scored the opener in a 2-2 draw with Shrewsbury and in the replay he became the youngest ever captain for Liverpool in a 1-0 win. 

His first league goal was scored in a 2-0 win over Aston Villa. December 1st 2020, he scored his first UEFA Champions League goal in a 1–0 victory over Ajax, sealing Liverpool's progression into the knockout stages.

Midway through last season, Jones showed that he was a class player, he assisted 4 goals in a UCL game against Porto and he scored a brace at Brentford in a 3-3 draw. However, injury ruled him out meaning his chances were not consistent enough. 

I believe that next year he will be an important player. I think he is a very similar player to Thiago, so he could play along side him or he could be a good cover for him when Thiago is injured. 

I would hate to see him leave because he has bags of potential and room for a legacy at the club. Let’s hope he can have a good chance this season. 

Salah Contract Renewal

Yesterday, Mohamed Salah renewed his contract with Liverpool. 

The Egyptian King signed a 5 year contract renewal with the club yesterday whilst on his holiday in his native Egypt. 

This came after there were rumours that he would not sign the contract and that he was going to find another team this summer. Thankfully for Reds fans, Liverpool found the right offer for Mo and he’s signed. 

The contract is worth around £350,000 a week which is around £130,000 more than Virgil Van Dijk’s wage which is now the second highest wage at £220,000. 

Klopp is ‘confident’ that the difference in wages will not cause any problems in the dressing room. 

Salah was the top player for Liverpool for most of last season, I believe the wage is fair but I do believe other teammates will not be happy. Liverpool’s wage structure usually doesn’t go like this, but with a player as important as Mo I think they would put it to one side.