Liverpool face surprise Italian package Bologna in their second game of the Champions League campaign, their first home fixture in this seasons competition. The Emilia-Romagna based club finished in an impressive 5th position in last seasons Serie A.
However, after losing two key players, Joshua Zirkzee and Riccardo Calafiori, they have had a lacklustre start to both major competitions. This leaves them in 12th position in Serie A and with one draw in the UCL. Bologna came into the game on the back of a 1-1 draw in which the player to look out for in Bologna’s team scored.
Santiago Castro
The Argentine striker joined Bologna at the start of the 23/24 season. Joining from Velez Sarsfield, the 20-year-old is in a rich vein of form, scoring in each of his last three Serie A games and providing an assist alongside a goal in a man-of-the-match performance against Como.
When watching the striker you may get a familiar feeling. He is often compared to Lautaro Martinez because of his nationality, but when seeing him play, he has shades of… Darwin Nuñez. Unpolished yet entertaining technical ability, fearless nature with the ball, aggressive in the battles and a good eye for goal sound familiar. Maybe this game comes a little early in Castro’s development, potentially up against Virg and Ibou, but against a young Quansah or bit-part Joe Gomez, he may cause problems.
He does possess a strong athletic ability, which links him more with Darwin. With the high line and potential rotation at the back, Castro may cause more than enough problems for the Reds.
Trent Alexander-Arnold
While important in every game, Trent will be needed much more in this one. Bologna is expected to look to sit back and defend, so creativity and pinpoint passing will be needed.
His passing range and set piece taking will be key in this game, being able to shift the play from one side to the other to try and disrupt the Bologna back-line could be a helpful tactic in the game. We learnt against Nottingham Forest that this team isn’t fully complete against these lower ranked teams, who come in and defend.
On the other side of the play, I feel that Trent will be tested when Bologna can attack, he will most likely be up against Dan Ndoye, a quick and tricky Swiss winger who may cause LFC and Trent some problems on the counter. Another aspect from the Forest game was the apparent game plan to hit LFC on the counter with two quick and technically gifted wingers, so with Trent being in the opposition half most of the game he still needs to keep his concentration up against the wingers.
Left Winger
An ambiguous selection here, but one that will become more important as the game goes on. Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo have both had great starts to the season, and Lucho has potentially been Liverpool’s best player to start the season.
With the three goal involvements in just two starts, Gakpo has really shone when called upon and looks more likely to start this game due to Arne Slot’s use of him in the cup competitions. Lucho has six goal involvements in his 6 Premier League starts and will likely be called upon off the bench against the Italian side.
I have chosen the player who will play on the left-hand side of the attack because of the player they will line up against. Stefan Posch has been playing at right-back for Bologna for the past two seasons but was developed early in his career as a centre-back. For this reason, I think that the right-hand side of the Bologna attack may be the best way to catch them out with inverted runs behind Posch.
Posch did have a good Euros tournament playing in a similar role, but with his size and mobility it may be an area Slot could look to attack at.