It’s always better to win but at the end of the day pre-season is about fitness and training patterns of play and hoping nobody gets hurt. New players work to bed in, youngsters get added to the mix, absentees mean positional tweaks and unbalanced sided.
At the end of the day, it’s about getting ready. Which Liverpool’s 4-2 defeat to AC Milan, with its moments of promise to go along with moments of Liverpool have seven fullbacks and one centre half and no defensive midfielder on the pitch certainly
provided. Even if it’s always better to win.
“Even though it’s pre-season, no-one likes to lose,” said summer signing Jeremie Frimpong, signed as a right back but mostly playing on the right wing against Milan. “But pre-season is to get fit. We’re getting there, we’re getting fit.
“For me, anywhere I play, I play the same. I’m an attacking fullback so if I play right wing, right back, right wingback, I play the same anyway. Wherever the manager wants to play me, that’s where I play. I knew a few of the boys so obviously it made it easier for me”
The boys in this case were some of Frimpong’s Dutch teammates and not Florian Wirtz, who also signed with Liverpool from Bayer Leverkusen this summer. Wirtz played the first half of Saturday’s match while Frimpong came on in the second.
With Liverpool in the midst of an overhaul of their attacking group, the club were down a few players there while having an overabundance of fullbacks, leading to a situation where it made sense for Frimpong to get a few minutes in his legs further up the pitch.
While it likely won’t be his primary role this season, it showed his flexibility—he is, as he says himself, an attacking fullback first and it wouldn’t be a shock to occasionally see Frimpong lining up in the forward band for Arne Slot at Liverpool.
Next up, Frimpong and his new club teammates are in Japan where they take on Yokohama F. Marinos as part of this summer’s J.League World Challenge on Wednesday, with the match kicking off at 7:30PM local time Wednesday (11:30AM BST, 6:30AM EST).
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