| Date: 21-07-23 Liverpool give us a decent friendly again |
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On the day that saw Matt Preston return to the Harriers permanently we also saw the team lose narrowly at home to a young Liverpool side in our latest friendly game.
Matt was in the starting line-up and trialist A, Dara Dada-Anité, was in the squad for the fourth time. This comes after we were originally lead to believe he was with us for only two games so is he about to be signed up for the season too?
Liverpools line-up wasn’t published prior to the game so we have little clue who was involved although Jay Spearing did come on in the second half he’s no spring chicken at 35 yrs old.
The first half was typical pre-season fare with no one really putting themselves under too much pressure apart from Joe Leesley who appeared to be on something of a personal crusade and received a couple of talking to’s from the referee. Liverpool had a shot on goal early on from Kieron Morrison but Christian Dibble saved easily enough.
Preston got his head on a couple of chances while Gerry McDonagh had a shot on goal towards the end of the half. Possibly his first on target so far since he joined us.
1st half team: Dibble, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Richards, Penny, Knight-Percival, Preston, Hemmings, Lambert, Leesley, McDonagh, Byrne.
The second half was a little more interesting with Dada coming on in place of Shane Byrne after the break. Liverpool had made a host of changes and one of those was Jayden Danns who later went on to score the only goal of the game.
We came very close to scoring from an unlikely source early on in the half when a ball fizzed across the area just slightly out of reach of Nathaniel Knight-Percival playing high up where the air is thin. We did get the ball in the net soon after when Ashley Hemmings teamed up with McDonagh to slide the ball home but he was ruled offside.
A minute later Danns scored his goal although it shouldn’t really have stood following a foul on a Harriers player that allowed Danns to run free on goal and angle the ball beyond the reach of Dibble.
Loads more subs took place after that and we tried to grab the goal back but couldn’t even though a fine effort from Kieran Phillips bought out an equally fine save from the ‘Pool keeper Jakub Ojrzynski. Possibly the best chance of the game came towards the end when Dada tried his luck from distance and the ball was flipped over by the keeper.
Leesley got into a battle of the handbags with Spearing late on with Joe getting a talking too and the veteran Spearing a simple wag of the finger. Referees still protect premiership players even in a friendly then.
That was it. Decent game. Expected result. Crowd was overstated. Knock 500 off.
Subs: Bishop, Maginniss, Pearce, Lissimore, Phillips, Brown, Morgan-Smith, Dara Dada-Anité, Hall, Hewett, Freemantle.
Att: 1753. From Liverpool 243.