Thursday, August 09, 2012

Europa League Preview: Liverpool vs FC Gomel

Brendan Rodgers takes charge of his first home game as Liverpool manager on Thursday night as his side defends a 1-0 first leg advantage against FC Gomel in a Europa League qualifier.

Last week's first encounter saw Stewart Downing earn the Reds a deserved victory against last season's Belarusian Super Cup winners, and quite understandably they're 1/5 favourites to win the second leg too.

Rodgers has promised to make Anfield a 'cauldron' and has spoken of his desire to get off to a perfect start in front of fans who he says have made him most welcome, but he did sound a warning shot to those expecting fireworks.

"Last week we were literally only four weeks into our pre-season before we had our first competitive game," he told the club's official website. "And we've still got a lot of improvement to make. There's no question about that.

"If people are expecting us to be coming in after four weeks and to be playing fast, flowing, fluent, dynamic football then that won't be the case.

"It takes time. There's a lot of work that goes in to making a team play that way and so it's going to take longer than four weeks."

Whether or not Liverpool are fast, flowing, fluid and dynamic shouldn't really matter too much this time, as although Gomel have enjoyed one or two fine nights in Europe they really don't possess the quality to make Thursday the most famous in their history.

No comments: