Adrian's Starting Place In Liverpool Line-Up To Face Manchester City Virtually Confirmed

Adrian has been virtually confirmed as a Liverpool starter for Saturday's Community Shield game against Manchester City.

He only played one game last season - a 2-0 win over Preston in the EFL Cup.

The former West Ham stopper is Liverpool's third-choice goalkeeper behind Alisson Becker and Caoimhin Kelleher.

But both Alisson and Kelleher are unavailable due to injury going into the 2022/23 season's curtain-raiser, which will take place at Leicester's King Power Stadium rather than Wembley due to a clash with the final of UEFA Women's Euro 2022.

Liverpool goalkeeper Adrian pictured during a pre-season friendly against RB Leipzig

IMAGO/Karina Hessland

Kelleher has not played in any of Liverpool's four friendly matches this summer, while Alisson's only appearance came in the first half of game no.1 - a 4-0 loss to Manchester United in Thailand.

Reds manager Jurgen Klopp is confident that Alisson will be fit in time to feature against Fulham on the opening weekend of the Premier League season, but he will not be involved against City.

Liverpool's sub keeper on Saturday is expected to be 18-year-old Harvey Davies, who made two 45-minute cameos in recent friendly wins over Crystal Palace and RB Leipzig without conceding a goal.

At the other end of the pitch, Klopp is likely to start with either Roberto Firmino or new signing Darwin Nunez as the spearhead of his attack.

Diogo Jota is currently unavailable due to a hamstring problem.

Klopp said on Thursday, as quoted by liverpoolfc.com: "No, Alisson and Diogo have no [chance]. Ali trained today more than the day before so he will be definitely available for Fulham, but not for the weekend.

“And the same for Diogo. Diogo was not here with us so how could he play a football game? That will take a while unfortunately. That's it."