Crystal Palace head coach Oliver Glasner has refused to play down the importance of the Community Shield this weekend, insisting that his team will do everything it can to do to Liverpool on Sunday what it did to Manchester City in the FA Cup final.
The Selhurst Park side is set to take on the Reds in the Community Shield at Wembley Stadium having come out on top against Pep Guardiola's men back in May. On that occasion, Eberechi Eze, who has been linked with an exit but has so far stayed put, scored the only goal of the game.
"Of course, Liverpool are always the favorites when Liverpool play against Crystal Palace," Glasner said in his pre-match press conference.
"As a champion against the 12th-placed team, and of course, how they acted again in the transfer market, how they strengthened their team, so Liverpool are the favorites.
"But Man City were also the favourites, and we won, so we expect to have chances as well, and that's how we're going to approach the game.
"The best thing about playing in this atmosphere, even if you have 40,000 or 45,000 fans behind you, is that you're simply responsible for playing to win, and that's what we're going to do."
While some would question the legitimacy of the Community Shield as a major trophy, Glasner is insistent that he wants his team to win it.
"For me, always when you play a final, when you play for silverware, you always want to win it," he said. "I mentioned this so often — sometimes I felt it when we were speaking about the Carabao Cup.
"We entered the competition to win it, and everyone was like 'It’s the Carabao', and of course, when we have a game in training, I hope everybody wants to win it, it's a winning mentality.
"I played, when I was at home after the training camp in Austria, Connect Four and lost twice in a row against my daughter, I was really upset! This I think is just the mindset you have, and I hope that this is what we try to create always: a winning mentality.
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"Never play a game just for playing it. Enter the pitch, go to Wembley, prepare in the best way, have the confidence that you can win it, and give the best that you can do. It doesn't mean that you always win it.
"But this is what we expect from us, this is what we expect from our players, and I think this is what the fans can expect from us. They can't expect winning it, but they can expect that we enter the pitch and try to win it — and this is what we will do."
Liverpool.com says: Crystal Palace is a really good team on the counter-attack, and it will be interesting to see how the Reds cope with that. In pre-season, being too open and out of control has been an issue at times this summer.