Preseason Begins For Liverpool As Players Return

Photo by John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

Preparations for the new season have officially begun at the AXA Training Centre.

And they’re back! Did you miss them? With all of the drama and intrigue of Liverpool’s summer transfer, it seems like just yesterday that the players went their separate ways for breaks and international duty. But Saturday kicked off the first day of the preseason for the Reds.

There are eight players returning for the first day back are Adrian, Stefan Bajčetić, Fabinho, Joe Gomez, Joël Matip, Darwin Núñez, Nathaniel Phillips and Thiago Alcantara. Other players who represented their countries over the international break have a long weekend and will return this Tuesday, July 11th. Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott are in the U21 England team who are scheduled to play in the Euro final against Spain this afternoon. They’ll return and join their Liverpool teammates sometime in the future.

With James Milner no longer in the team, we’ll soon see who is the last man standing when the players participate in the dreaded lactate test. Any guesses?

Here’s a cheerful video of manager Jürgen Klopp returning to the AXA Training Centre for the first day.

The team’s first game back is a friendly in Germany against Karlsruher SC on July 24th and a behind closed doors fixture against Greuther Furth. After that, they will once again be traveling to Singapore to take part in the ‘Festival of Football’, where they’re scheduled to play Leicester City and Bayern Munich. The games will end in a return to England to play another German team, Darmstadt 98. The 2023-24 season officially begins on August 13th at Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea.

There are still dealings happening in the transfer market, so there will likely be more new faces filtering in and out while the training continues.