Will Austria Herald the Start of Liverpool's Revival
This week new Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson took a squad of mainly reserve team players to their Swiss training camp close to The Alps. Senior players such as Kyriakos have joined the squad after their exploits in the World Cup. It was also announced by the club midweek that Stevie, Jamie and Glen would not be going to Switzerland but straight to Melwood upon their return from holiday.
The last few days, though according to press reports on the Liverpool FC official site have been a very fruitful time. The squad for the first time in ages appears to be looking as though they are enjoying the new training regime.
The training though was now over and the team had travelled across the border to Austria for their first game in what will be a short pre-season exercise. They were to play Saudi team Al Halial. This game would be the chance for the supporters and the press to get an idea of how Roy would be using the players that he has inherited. Would we see the beginning of the revival that is urgently needed was the big question on every ones lips?
The team as usual was announced one hour before kick-off and to everyone's surprise consisted of mainly reserve team players. It was Gulacsi, Degen, Darby, Ayala, Kelly, Lucas, Aquilani, Riera, Amoo, Dalla Valle and Ngog . The substitutes were Hansen, Spearing, Irwin, Shelvey, Ince, Eccleston, Palsson. This was of course due to the fact that several of the senior players were still on holiday after the World Cup. Roy it appeared was looking at some of the youngsters who are hopefully ready to make that major step up to the first team and become regular members - something which for whatever reason Rafa seemed unable pursue.
This was being shown on LFCTV and the excitement was beginning to build up, then shock horror, rumours were beginning to surface that the game would be called off. The team had arrived in Austria to what can only be described as an absolute deluge. It appeared that the weather had other ideas and the amount of water that fell in such a short time, completely waterlogged the pitch. A decision was then made to do a pitch inspection. This was done and as the rain appeared to have stopped, the ground staff was given forty five minutes to get as much water off the pitch as they could. Unfortunately as these things go, just when it looked as though the team would be allowed onto the pitch, the heavens opened again. It became very quickly apparent to both teams and the officials that the game would have to be called off.
This was done and as a thank you to the supporters who had turned up the team went out onto the pitch and clapped them in appreciation.
With the score at Weather 1 Liverpool Football Club 0, I just hope that it is not a bad omen for the season ahead and from Wednesday, we will see that a rebuilding programme has started.
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