When the fixtures get released in the early summer, every Liverpool fan’s eyes tend to head to the same two teams. Man United and Everton. We play the latter on Saturday afternoon in the first derby of the new season.
Not to fall into the cliche trap, but in these fixtures, form really does go out the window, which for us wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Quite a strange thing to say when we haven’t lost a game this season, but I guess it’s more in the fashion we have been winning games.
In an ideal world, we’d have a clean sheet and a 4-goal lead with half an hour to play, but we all know that won’t happen.
Here is how Liverpool could line up against the Toffees to try to maintain their unbeaten start to the Premier League season.
Goalkeeper: Alisson
Defenders: Andy Robertson, Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk, Jeremie Frimpong
Midfielders: Ryan Gravenberch, Dominik Szoboszlai, Florian Wirtz
Forwards: Cody Gakpo, Alexander Isak, Mohamed Salah
Ali starting is one of the most obvious choices in world football. Quite literally the first name on the sheet, and assuming he doesn’t get injured before Saturday lunchtime, he’ll be starting.
The centre halves pick themselves here too. Ibou has shaken off the cobwebs of his first couple of matches and is looking more like his old, solid self again.
Virg is Virg, and when you put in performances that have the football community asking things like, ‘Is he the greatest centre back of all time?’, you know he’s doing something right.
Frimpong will likely get the nod over Bradley to maintain that pacey threat, but it’s the left back position that is the most interesting. Kerkez loves a tackle, and you need a level head and experience in a derby.
Robertson’s history in this fixture and maturity should see him get the start here, and there will be time enough for Kerkez to prove himself throughout the season.
Now things get interesting. I said all of last season that Macca was by far our best midfielder and one of the best midfielders in the world. I’m not going back on that, but the balance that Grav, Dom, and Wirtz bring is sensational.
The perfect, delicate mix of pace, threat, calmness, and strength, I think it’s going to be really hard for Slot to break that up.
Macca is still getting back to his best with his fitness, as the long trips to South America haven’t been helping with his preparation. Having a player like Macca to introduce if things aren’t going our way is a luxury very few teams in world football have.
Finally, our forwards. You can probably count on one hand the number of derbies Mo has missed in the past 8 years, so he’ll be on the right.
Gakpo will have hopefully been practicing something other than cutting inside onto his right foot on the edge of the box, so he’ll be on the left.
The headline here will be Isak. Slot pulled him after an hour, as he said he would, against Atleti. We saw very brief flashes of his ability on Wednesday night, but since those were his first minutes of the season, no one was expecting fireworks.
There were moments where he and Wirtz caught each other's wavelength quite naturally, so hopefully they will be able to nurture their relationship on the weekend to break down Everton’s likely low block.
We’ll have a lot of the ball on Saturday; it’s going to be up to our most creative and effective players to secure the three points and, more importantly, the bragging rights.