Premier League Shorts

On Saturday the 30th of July Liverpool take on Manchester City in what is essentially a precursor to the start of the Premier League season. To all intents and purposes, this is supposed to be a friendly tune-up as both teams put finishing touches to their preparations for a long season.

The recent rivalry between these two sides could however mean that this game will be anything but a friendly encounter. Both sides will be keen to lay down a marker and there is a sense that while both sets of players may not typically be flying into tackles, the game itself will be frantic, full of high-intensity pressing and perhaps moments of spectacular brilliance from a few of the stars that are guaranteed to grace the hallowed turf of Leicester’s King Power Stadium.

For Premier League enthusiasts who have undoubtedly been starved of high octane football over the last few weeks, this is one to savour and it might be worthwhile to keep an eye out for a newly assembled forward line in both teams as the prolific Erling Haaland (Man City’s latest acquisition from Borrusia Dortmund) and Darwin Nunez formerly of Benfica are likely to make appearances for their respective sides.

The last meeting between these two sides was in this year’s FA Cup semi-final, where Liverpool came away with a 3-2 victory that saw them sneak into the final against Chelsea. City could still be smarting from that loss and will definitely be keen to lay down the marker and let all the pretenders to their crown know that they are still the number one team in England.

Abiye Opuamah

Abiye Opuamah is an editor and a massive football enthusiast who also dabbles now and again in writing flash fiction pieces, playing chess against the machine and almost always roots for the underdog. He lives in Johannesburg.