It was sufficient to even temporarily halt the incessant cheers from the passionate local Liverpool fans.
Mere minutes into Liverpool’s latest outing in Singapore’s National Stadium, there was an audible intake of breath when a strong challenge from behind by Leicester City midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall left summer signing Alexis Mac Allister writhing on the turf in clear distress.
All eyes were fixed on the prone Argentine. The relief, then, was tangible as he gingerly rose to his feet, brushed himself down and cracked on with the task in hand.
The Reds, of course, could ill afford another midfield injury. And if Leicester thought Mac Allister would be rattled by the robust foul, they soon discovered the opposite to be the case.
Previous friendlies against Karlsruher SC and Greuther Furth had offered glimpses of why Jurgen Klopp made the World Cup winner the priority of his summer rebuild, Liverpool snaffling him from Brighton for a bargain £35million.
Here, though, in the stifling heat of the Far East, the Reds witnessed the most compelling evidence yet of why Mac Allister can prove a transformational signing for a midfield that has been crying out for change.
The 24-year-old was a central figure as Liverpool overcame a slow start to blow Leicester away with an statement of attacking intent that saw three goals in eight blistering minutes shortly before half-time.
Mac Allister, with his low centre of gravity and tenacious strength in possession, has already shown at Brighton he can cut it in the rough and tumble of the Premier League. That durability will serve him well in a Klopp midfield.
But what really impressed here was how he married that with the ability to see and then execute a pass, best demonstrated when initiating the second goal by retaining possession under pressure in midfield and then feeding Diogo Jota, who in turn passed to Mohamed Salah to roll the ball into the path of teenager Bobby Clark to fire a crisp finish into the bottom corner from 16 yards
Mac Allister had also found Jota inside the area five minutes earlier, shot from the Portuguese then only parried by Leicester goalkeeper Mads Hermansen to allow Darwin Nunez to snaffle the opener.
Jota then notched the third with a fine header from Salah’s cross from the right with Ben Doak scoring the fourth midway through the second half when nodding in at the far post after a Dominik Szoboszlai corner had been flicked on. By then, Mac Allister was on the sidelines, his job done as part of the first-half team.
It may have only been 45 minutes. But it was sufficient to suggest Mac Allister is a certainty to start when the real stuff begins at Chelsea in a fortnight. He represents the future of Liverpool’s midfield.
Jurgen Klopp fumes with fourth official as Liverpool training ground trick revealed
Liverpool continued their preparation for the new Premier League season with an emphatic win over Leicester City on Sunday.
Goals before the break from Darwin Nunez, Bobby Clark and Diogo Jota were followed by a Ben Doak effort to earn the Reds a thumping 4-0 triumph against a team relegated from the top flight in May.
The result means Jurgen Klopp’s side remain unbeaten during the warm-up programme after beating Karlsruher SC and drawing with Greuther Furth in Germany.
The result means Jurgen Klopp’s side remain unbeaten during the warm-up programme after beating Karlsruher SC and drawing with Greuther Furth in Germany.
But there was plenty that went unnoticed or under the radar during the 90 minutes at the Singapore National Stadium.
Klopp doesn’t really do friendlies. And that became evident during the second half of this entertaining encounter as Liverpool pushed forward for more goals.
A long punt from Alisson Becker sought out Luis Diaz, who appeared to have got the better of his marker and was preparing to sprint towards the penalty area when he was strangely penalised for a foul.
Cue Klopp bouncing up and down on the touchline and directing his disbelief in the direction of the fourth official, before thinking better of it and wandering back to the bench. Never change, Jurgen.
Diaz denied
There was further frustration for Diaz a little later on when the Colombian thought he’d netted Liverpool’s fifth goal from close range, only for it to be disallowed for an offside earlier in the move.
That, though, didn’t stop the stadium’s PA operator from following goalscoring protocol and pressing play on Blur’s ubiquitous Song 2.
Damon Albarn hadn’t even got to his second round of woo hoos before the jingle was hastily halted to spare any further embarrassment.
One from the training ground
While the prospect of Doak scoring a header may have seemed fairly unlikely ahead of kick-off today, was it the plan all along for Liverpool?
The youngster nodded in from a Joel Matip flick-on, after Dominik Szoboszlai had swung in a dangerous corner.
And once the ball was in the back of the net, Matip was quick to turn and acknowledge Szoboszlai before he trotted to join the celebrations – in a potential giveaway that the Reds had been working on this particular routine in training.
Names go Wes(t)
Liverpool may have cornered the market for football legends in Singapore at the weekend but Leicester weren’t without their own representatives in the press room before kick-off.
Emile Heskey, the former Reds striker who first made his name with the Foxes, and Wes Morgan, the captain of Leicester’s remarkable title-winning team of 2016, were both in attendance.
And they certainly deserved better than being referred to as ‘West Morgan’ and ‘Emenuel Hesky’ on the big screen inside the stadium during the build-up to the big game.
Numbers don’t add u
Those watching back in England wondering why there so many empty seats inside the stadium were perhaps unaware of the high price of tickets and the fact the match was being shown live on local television.
Liverpool’s game against Bayern Munich on Wednesday is expected to draw a bigger crowd with almost all tickets having already been sold at the 55,000-capacity venue.
And eyebrows were raised when it was announced shortly before full-time that Sunday’s game had drawn a crowd of nearly 30,000. Is whoever tallies the Arsenal home attendances moonlighting in the Far East?