Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has claimed that the Community Shield tie with Arsenal will be ‘in the middle of the pre-season’, downplaying the importance of the fixture.
The formerly known Charity Shield is coming up thick-and-fast, with only 10 days until the fixture, with the UEFA Nations League set to follow that before the Premier League is to get underway.
The competition has been downplayed numerous times over the years, and with the current world climate, this year’s edition looks to be taken even less seriously.
The Premier League champions boss at least will be considering the match as part of his pre-season, but he will still expect a bold showing from his side.
He told LFCTV: “From a timing point of view, the Community Shield is in the middle of the pre-season, if you want. For us it’s not the same.
“It will be a good game, I’m pretty sure. Arsenal is a good team, so it will be a good game, but both teams will not be the finished articles.
“How can we be after two weeks training again and stuff like this? But that’s not important because both teams probably have the same situation, so it will be tough.
“The 22nd is the first friendly, 25th second friendly, 29th [is] then the Community Shield, so you see it’s a pretty tight one immediately.
“But what I want to see from the boys, that we play our football again. That’s it pretty much. And that we deal with the problems in the game in our way, that we create, that we prepare, that we are ready to defend together, that we have all the principles we worked on so long.
“You should see that we didn’t meet a week ago for the first time in our lives. So we worked together for a while, didn’t change a lot squad-wise. We want to see just our football.”
The Community Shield is usually just one week before the new campaign kicks off, but there is a break this term for the UEFA Nations League, although more eyes will be on this year’s edition with the Championship, League One and League Two usually having started before the fixture.
Will Mikel Arteta be taking the Wembley outing more seriously than his rival? Will both sides be forced to rotate following the minimal break from action?
Patrick
