Liverpool 1-0 Norwich: Reds cruise through their Atletico warm up

Liverpool cruised through their Champions League Atletico Madrid warm up as they beat Norwich City 1-0 in the Premier League on Saturday.

After a few weeks without any football, getting some minutes and rhythms back into legs before the key showdown against Atletico was vital for Jurgen Klopp’s side.

Alisson made a key save and put in an outstanding performance, Jordan Henderson ran the midfielder and Roberto Firmino put in a display that had everything apart from a goal.

Klopp threw a bit of a selection curveball by bringing Naby Keita into the fold and only gave Fabinho a handful of minutes at the end. He looked well off the pace since returning from injury and hopefully can get up to speed for the Champions League game.

We know Diego Simeone will send his side out to grind and frustrate his way to a victory. They will snap and tackle and run at Liverpool like Spartans, they won’t stop. That means Keita could get the nod over Fabinho with Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum either side of the shuttling, dynamic midfielder.

The manner in which Liverpool beat Norwich seems to indicate that they wanted to cruise past this one and use it as a training exercise before Madrid. The Reds barely left cruise control and played with plenty left in the tank and finally broke the deadlock when Sadio Mane came on as a substitute.

Hopefully Mane will be able to start during the week and resume his return to fitness. It’s interesting that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has been preferred to Divock Origi on the left and it gives some indication of what Klopp thinks about the Ox’s talents versus those of Origi.

This is a fight over two legs and one that could see different methods employed for home and away. It’s the real prize at the end of rainbow that was the winter break, and the Norwich game was just a warm up for it.