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Liverpool dominated Stoke City with a 5-0 scoreline in a behind-closed-doors friendly at AXA Training Centre and the key takeaways were interesting.

After the comfortable 3-1 victory against Preston North End in their first pre-season friendly of the 2025-26 season last weekend, the Reds hosted the Championship side at their training ground for a behind-closed-doors friendly yesterday.

After last week’s friendly, the Merseysiders have been returning to their usual life, recovering from the tragic passing of beloved No.



have flown out of England to the Far East for their pre-season tour.

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LFC started off the game with a strong lineup, with their record signing Florian Wirtz making his unofficial debut for the club, donning the No.

58 shirt, after sitting out the game against Preston.

The first half lineup consisted of Giogo Mamardashvili at goal, who, after the impressive clean sheet appearance in the 3-1 victory, started between the sticks.

Virgil van Dijk captained the side alongside Joe Gomez as his defensive pairing.

10.

Up top, the forward trio lined up as Mohamed Salah at right-wing, Darwin Nunez at striker and 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha at left-wing.

The game started off with an early goal from the Uruguayan international in the sixth minute.

The Italian international scored the final goal of the match.

Liverpool first-half team: Mamardashvili, Gomez, Van Dijk, Szoboszlai, Nunez, Salah, Jones, Robertson, Wirtz, Ngumoha, Nyoni.

Liverpool second-half team: Mamardashvili (Pecsi, 59), Endo, Konate, Chiesa, Gakpo, Tsimikas, Gravenberch, Doak (Stephenson, 74), Kerkez, Frimpong, Bradley.

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Although this was a friendly with little to no consequences, the game provided a deeper insight into what the Premier League champions will be offering when the season starts.

As the pre-season tour squad was announced yesterday, the names of Luis Diaz and Federico Chiesa have been left out, highlighting their potential exit from the Merseyside club.

Examining the game, it is safer to say that, although Slot will be deploying a 4-2-3-1 formation on paper, whenever the team has possession or is in a position to counter, the formation would look like a 3-1-5-1, with both fullbacks jumping up to cover the wider areas and the wingers inverting as No.

The club has the upper hand in this transfer saga now.

Lastly, by the looks of it, Slot might be providing increased playing chances to the youngsters such as Nyoni and Ngumoha, as they have massively impressed in the last two matches.

So, with a number of changes and developments at the club, Liverpool look set to prove their worth in the pre-season tour as they make their trip to Hong Kong and Japan.

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