Liverpool end their preseason campaign against Como at Anfield on Sunday, and they will do it twice. One match is behind closed doors in the morning, followed by a public game in the afternoon, giving the club a final chance to look at the squad before the Premier League opener a week later.
The timing makes the fixture matter now. Liverpool have lost their last two preseason games, 4-2 to Leeds United in the United States and 3-2 to Monaco on Merseyside, and both defeats came after they had built two-goal leads. That is the edge of the story: the attack has looked sharp enough to score nine times in four matches this summer, but the team has also allowed nine goals and has not protected leads well enough.
Alexis Mac Allister, the World Cup finalist, is expected to be available at the weekend, and his presence would give Arne Slot one more experienced option as Liverpool close the summer. Como arrive with a different kind of momentum after qualifying for the Champions League last season under Cesc Fàbregas, which gives the double-header a proper competitive edge even in preseason.
There is still one detail Liverpool have not made public: which players will appear in the closed-doors match and which will be held back for the game supporters can watch. That split may tell as much about Slot’s thinking as the result itself, because the club is not just trying to finish preseason cleanly. It is trying to settle a side that has created enough to excite and conceded enough to worry.
What comes next is already fixed. Liverpool move from Sunday’s final rehearsal straight into Newcastle United next Sunday, and the lesson from Anfield should be clear long before then: the season will not wait for the defence to catch up with the attack.
