In his first column of the new season, John Aldridge looks back at what was learned from Liverpool's Community Shield defeat to Crystal Palace
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot(Image: Michael Regan - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
The Premier League season starts on Friday. And Liverpool are not ready.
You could see that against Crystal Palace on Sunday in the Community Shield. We started very well but the longer the game went on, the fact Palace appeared sharper and fitter started to show.
Liverpool’s pre-season programme has been difficult and disrupted for obvious reasons, but it didn’t help they were without their usual midfield at the weekend. The three lads who played there – Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones and Florian Wirtz – are the three lesser defensively out of all the options available to Arne Slot.
They just didn’t get a grip with the Palace midfield throughout, and that put a lot more pressure on the centre-backs than would usually be the case.
There have to be some concerns going into the opening Premier League game against Bournemouth at Anfield on Friday, particularly with Ryan Gravenberch missing through suspension.
Slot has to hope Alexis Mac Allister will be fit enough to start and get through most of the game, but who starts alongside the Argentina international will be interesting.
Ignore those who say the Community Shield is merely a glorified friendly. It matters – it’s a game at Wembley with a trophy to be won.
Being there in the first place shows you are a good team, given it means you’ve won either the championship or the FA Cup. I’m proud to have two winners’ medals from the Charity Shield, as it was called back in the day.
We saw on Sunday just how competitive it can be. It was a close game, but Liverpool’s penalties were really poor.
We threw it away having led twice. The first goal by Hugo Ekitike was absolutely tremendous, and at times we played some great stuff going forward. But once again there were some elementary mistakes at the back that we can’t afford to keep making.
Palace have got good pace and they looked to play their forwards in behind and stretch the play. They have good attacking players and they were able to capitalise on some sloppy play from Liverpool.
Both Palace goals could have been avoided with simple defending. In the build-up to the penalty for the first goal, Ibrahima Konate should have put the ball out of play after Alisson Becker’s good save, and Cody Gakpo got knocked off possession too easily for the second and Virgil van Dijk was wrong to try to play offside.
Defensively we looked vulnerable and that’s a major worry. There’s plenty for Slot to consider this week.
Minority ruin Palace's good name
It was disgusting how a handful of Crystal Palace supporters disrupted the period of silence in tribute and memory of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva.
I have praised Palace fans over the years. They are loyal, they get behind the team and they make a lot of noise, particularly at Selhurst Park.
So the actions of a few are not what the Palace supporters stand for on a whole.
Whether they were drunk or not, or just weren’t paying attention, or were just in high spirits, there is no excuse for what happened. It was disgusting.
The good name of Palace fans is now going to suffer because of the actions of a few mindless idiots.