An outstanding performance against English rivals Leicester City in a pre-season friendly in Singapore on Sunday helped Liverpool get ready for the start of their new campaign in the Premier League. Liverpool defeated Leicester City 4-0.
The Reds had a 3-0 advantage going into the break thanks to goals scored by Darwin Nunez, Bobby Clark, and Diogo Jota during an eight-minute span at the end of the first half.
At the National Stadium, a victory by a resounding margin was cemented when Ben Doak headed in their fourth goal almost halfway through the second half.
Jurgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool, was able to look back on a productive day of training for his team with two weeks remaining until the start of the Premier League season, which will take place against Chelsea.
“We had a lot of good moments but we can do better,” the German added. “We had a lot of good moments.”
“I’m completely content (with the way things turned out). The end outcome was satisfying, nobody was really hurt (apart from a few bumps and bruises), and the energy both during and after the game was excellent. Therefore, I would say that today was a productive day at work.”
Liverpool will play Bayern Munich in yet another preseason friendly on Wednesday in Singapore. Meanwhile, Leicester, who finished last season in the Premier League but were relegated to the Championship, will be returning to England for the first game of their Championship campaign on Sunday against Coventry City.
After nine minutes of play, Leicester had the game’s first significant chance when Kasey McAteer’s through pass found Wilfred Ndidi behind the Liverpool defense. However, Liverpool goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher came out and blocked the shot made by the Nigerian midfielder from point-blank range.
Soon after that, Nunez’s shot was ruled out for offside, and Leicester goalkeeper Mads Hermansen did brilliantly to paw the ball away as Mohamed Salah tried to reach Jota with a low cross. This prevented Liverpool from scoring the game’s first goal.
At the thirty-minute mark, Liverpool’s pressure would eventually pay off as they would take the lead. Hermansen was able to block Jota’s strong low shot from the left channel, but he could only deflect the ball to the far post, where Nunez was waiting to put his team on the board with the game’s first goal.
Clark, who was just 18 years old at the time, beat Hermansen with a right-footed effort that went past the goalkeeper and into the bottom corner of the net five minutes later after Salah had passed the ball to him inside the penalty area.
Three minutes later, Jota scored Liverpool’s third goal after Salah had helped set the stage for the goal by scooping the ball up with his foot and setting it up for Jota to score with his head.
Even though they made ten substitutions in their outfield players after halftime, Liverpool maintained their dominant position in terms of possession throughout the second half.
In the 64th minute, they scored a fourth goal from a well-worked set piece. It came about when Joel Matip flicked Dominik Szoboszlai’s corner to the far post, where it was met by Doak, who headed it in.
Patson Daka’s shot was superbly stopped by Jarell Quansah for Leicester, while at the other end, Luis Diaz was left upset again when he had his headed goal disallowed for offside before being denied by a fine save by Hermansen. Leicester came close to scoring a consolation goal when Jarell Quansah blocked Patson Daka’s attempt.