Preseason Liverpool Games Thread

All game-related stuff, and general football discussion

The on-pitch football resumes today, while everyone remains in degrees of disbelieving numbness.

At Deepdale will be the first of many tributes to Diogo Jota, with more to surely follow.

Preseason has always been about getting fit, and often playing games in addition to tough training on that same day, that makes the games themselves harder to judge.

They are not to be taken seriously, beyond positives from unexpected players who may be improving ahead of the season proper. Good signs are good signs; bad signs can be rustiness, or overload from the fitness sessions.

And while it always feels better to win these games, and play good football, games are further distorted by what are often imbalanced lineups, with teams not picked along normal lines but who is fitter at this point, and then the mass changes in the second half. That’s lessened in 2025, as there are no players returning from international competitions at different points, that didn’t help Liverpool last season, but it didn’t matter in the end.

Unlike proper games, teams do not prepare for these to win them, but to get sharpness, and miles in the legs, and to give everyone a go. It’s always important to help bed-in the new signings (and see them for the first time in a red shirt), and to bond across the summer, before the first meaningful games.

This summer is stranger still, but the importance of preseason will serve as a way of getting through the grief and shock, and learning to ‘play’ football again. For a while, players may find themselves stuck in the lethargy that can follow such a shocking loss.

This is the thread for discussion between paying TTT Main Hub subscribers on the preseason games.