The most mouth-watering game of the Premier League’s opening weekend takes place at the Emirates on Sunday when Arsenal and Liverpool go head-to-head.
Despite the Reds pre-season form, Arsenal remain slight favourites with bookmakers.
It would have undoubtedly suited both sides to have met a little later in the season when the players had a bit more match time under their belts, but for supporters of these two traditional power house clubs, this is a great way to kick things off.
Klopp has remained tight lipped about his intentions for the opening match:
“I never in my life made a decision about the line-up one week before the game because experience teaches you that everything can happen.
“We will have 11 very good players on the pitch against Arsenal and we will have a very strong bench, I’m really sure. But at this moment I have no idea who is where.”
Following encouraging pre-season results and in particular the Barcelona game team spirits are high. New signings Sadio Mane, Georginio Wijnaldum, Loris Karius, Ragnar Klavan and Joel Matip all attended a pre-season party as they looked to get to know their new team-mates better ahead of Sundays clash.
Anfield legend Jamie Carragher believes the Reds could line-up without a recognised number nine therefore the most likely line-up will be:
Mignolet, Clyne, Lovren, Matip, Milner, Lallana, Can, Henderson, Mane, Firmino and Coutinho.
Arsenal starting XI looks likely to be: Cech, Bellerin, Chambers, Koscielny, Monreal, Xhaka, Coquelin, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Iwob and Sanchez.
While this is a difficult opener for the Reds, if they perform as they are capable of there’s no reason why they can’t cause Arsenal a lot of problems and come away with a favourable result to get their season off to the perfect start.
