10 hours ago
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Liverpool has confirmed its starting XI to take on AC Milan at the Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong, with decisions made on new signings Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike.
The former is in the starting XI while the latter has not been named in the squad just a couple of days after arriving. Virgil van Dijk is among those who will make their first public appearance of the summer having sat out the friendly at Preston North End.
Alisson Becker is in goal, with Dominik Szoboszlai potentially playing right-back. Luca Stephenson, Van Dijk and Andy Robertson make up the rest of the back four.
Tyler Morton and Ryan Gravenberch start and could make up a midfield two, on paper at least, while Harvey Elliott, Mohamed Salah, Florian Wirtz and Rio Ngumoha might form a front four.
In midfield, Alexis Mac Allister is injured. Luis Diaz, who is of interest to Bayern Munich, is not involved. Neither is Darwin Nunez, who has been linked with an exit.
Kerkez, a former AC Milan player, is particularly looking forward to the clash. "Obviously I played there and trained a lot with the first team, know a lot of the guys," he told the Reds' official website earlier this week.
"It will be fun and will be good also for me to get more minutes and get adapted more to my teammates. I’m looking forward to it — it’s my old team and I have good memories there.
"[Training so far] has been really good. Intense — that’s how we like to train. We are adapting to the heat still but it’s good, all the guys train hard and we are getting really ready physically.
"I think it will help definitely, when we get back to England then the lungs will open. Because we train in big heat and we know how the weather is there. So, I think it will help us a lot and we will get back really ready."
Kerkez was also asked about what his short time with Liverpool has been like so far. He impressed against Preston, but has now had a glimpse in Asia of the global status that the Reds have.
"Of course I know it is one of the biggest clubs in the world and when I came it just surprised me also how professional everything is and how high a level everything is," he said.
"And that you really have to work hard every single day to compete. It’s the highest level. That surprised me but it’s also what I was looking for, so I’m really happy."
English (US) ·