Liverpool v Norwich: Premier League – live!

“I’m excited to watch Teemu Pukki,” discloses Steve Forstneger. “First, one of my favorite all-time hockey players was Teemu ‘The Finnish Flash’ Selanne, as speedy on the ice as he was in his collection of exotic cars. Secondly, I recently enjoyed the Finnish comedy HeavyTrip, about a death metal band’s perilous trek to play a festival in Norway. Anyway: Origi hat trick.” Don’t quite follow your workings there, Steve, but enjoyed them, all the same. However, much as I admire Origi, I do think Liverpool may rue not recruiting another, better forward. And, ideally, a creative midfielder.

“Good luck for the season, Paul,” begins David Seare before getting down to brass tacks: “This is the kind of game that undermines sport as an idea. 22 players take the field today knowing who will win. It isn’t sport, it’s complicated advertising. On the upside my local radio station has enabled a cheap pizza to be coming my way. I used to love football.” Anyone out there see Norwich proving him wrong? My head says a 4-1 home win.

Brendan wants to defend the film Krull, sort of [see 19.24]. “Bernard Breslaw as a vengeful cyclops and Tucker Jenkins as a supporting hero? Whatever imagination they had went on to that casting,” he notes.

“I have this almanac software on my computer that says this is day 121 of the year,” announces Marcus. “Now I happen to know that ‘u’ is the 21st letter in the alphabet. So that makes this day AU, since A is the first. So my question is who will get AU today? AU is of course gold in the periodic table symbols.” You’ve got it all wrong, Marcus: you could do sincere 1-2-1 chat, but not with me. And you also need an almanac that can count.

“Is that Krul in Norwich’s goal the same Krul that used to be at Newcastle?” asks Pearson. “Whenever I see that name, I am reminded of a poor mid 80s science fantasy movie by the same name.” It is the very same Ruud Krul, Pearson, and he’s a weak link, if you want my opinion. Oh, and the movie was called Krull, which was the name of a planet invaded by a ferocious beast called … Beast. Not all science fiction movies are triumphs of the imagination.

I’d hate to be Daniel Farke’s secretary: he fires out words at a speed that could melt fingers. This is more or less what he said: he began by addressing the point that his side were the top scorers away from home last in all four divisions “That doesn’t count any more. This is a new challenge for us, one of the places you can go. Liverpool are one of the top teams in the world, if not the best.” Asked whether it is a gamble to come and attack Liverpool, he says they couldn’t do it any other way even if they wanted to, because they don’t have the players to play differently. “It’s not a gamble, there is no other option for us. We are still paying for some of the sins of our past so we were not able to spend unbelievable amount of money over the summer. So let’s see what we can do. We have to get a lot of topics right. We can’t just park the bus .. we need many periods in the game where we have possession and we have to be very precise in our pressing.”

“We should be ready but we have to prove that,” he announces before responding to a question about why Liverpool didn’t reinforce during the summer. “We were looking for one or two things and it didn’t work out but there’s no panic about that. If we don’t find the right one, we don’t do it.” As for the threat posed by Norwich, he’s sure not playing it down: “Norwich deserve all our respect because how they got promotion last season was exceptional. They are a special team.”

It’s the same lineup that started the Community Shield, with Sadio Mané deemed only sharp enough for the bench. Norwich, meanwhile, do not include any of their summer signings, they’ll be looking to the slinky Emi Buendia to pull strings for them in midfield.

Liverpool: Allison; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Fabinho, Wijnaldum; Salah, Firmino, Origi

Subs: Adrian, Milner, Matip, Keita, Mané, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Shaqiri

Norwich: Krul; Aarons, Hanley, Godfrey, Lewis; McLean, Trybull, Buendia, Stiepermann, Cantwell; Pukki

Subs: Fahrmann, Byram, Roberts, Vranjcic, Leitner, Hernandez, Drmic

Referee: M Oliver

To quote Alice Cooper: ♪♫ hello, hurray, let the show begin!♪♫ The Premier League is back, baby, and it’s kicking off with a doozy of a duel. Liverpool, acclaimed runners-up last season, start their attempt to climb one place higher by facing a side they did not have to play last term – because Norwich, of course, were busy romping away with the Championship. Both clubs are so convinced in their men and methods that neither did much to revamp personnel over the summer; Norwich made a few canny additions while Liverpool did nothing other than bring in Adrian as backup goalkeeper. Let’s see how that pans out for them.

The prognosis for this match is for a high-energy thriller. Norwich averaged more than two goals a game last season and, although they are unlikely to be reckless enough to charge out all guns blazing at Anfield, we can certainly expect them to try to mount regular attacks. They have the wherewithal to bother Liverpool. But can Teemu Pukki possibly score as prolifically as he did last season? And, bearing in mind how sharp Jurgen Klopp’s team already looked in the second half of last weekend’s Community Shield, is Norwich’s defence capable of stopping Liverpool from tearing them to shreds? This has got goals written all over it. Let’s be having you!