Reds Return From North America

Gerrard featured against Spurs...
Image: lfctour.com
For this season's preparations Liverpool made the trip across the pond to take part in a North American tour, facing the likes of Roma, Spurs and Toronto it was a great chance for Brendan Rodgers to get to know his squad properly and also play around with some of his many ideas.

The first match against Toronto saw the Reds grab a 1-1 draw. The Major League Soccer side were perhaps the most unfamiliar of opposition for Liverpool but that didn't stop youngster Adam Morgan getting on the score sheet.

Amarikwa scored for Toronto as a substitute in the second half but Morgan quickly cancelled out their lead with his goal just before the 70 minute mark. Raheem Sterling deserves a mention here also because it was his efforts that set up Morgan and Raheem had a brilliant game.

It was a great show all round for Liverpool's youth with Dani Pacheco impressing the crowds also.

Next up for the Reds was AS Roma. With Aquilani and Borini in the squad we'd be facing familiar opposition.

This match was held at a brilliantly prepared Fenway Park, it looked like a fantastic occasion as the Reds walked out against the Italians. Unfortunately for the Liverpool fans present though Roma were victorious in a 2-1 win.

Some of the more regular names were featured in this match with Carragher, Skrtel and Spearing all starting. It was Charlie Adam though who grabbed Liverpool their only goal of the game with a great strike.

The last match of the three was against Tottenham Hotspur. With Andre Villas Boas now at the helm he may have felt as though he had a point to prove to the people who were rumoured to be his employers but with Brendan in our hot seat this was set to be an interesting battle as both sides looked for a win.

Typically though, the match that gets the most talk always seems to be the most disappointing and in this case certainly in terms of goals, it was. The 0-0 draw was a decent result for both sides and perhaps the main upside was that Fabio Borini got himself half an hour on the pitch.

Brad Jones had a good first half in goal for the Reds and Gulasci improved too in the second half on his earlier performance in the tour.

Frustrations were raised after the match due to Charlie Adam injuring Gareth Bale, it is quite ironic really that the Welshman supposedly faked an injury to miss the Olympics and now he is actually injured...

All in all as always this was, what it was. Pre-season. I'm not one of these fans that really takes these things seriously, you have some people that believe they can predict a teams performance in the league just from watching their pre-season, it's nonsense. There's that many variations of players and tactics that there's no way you could predict.

My favourite thing out of this tour though has the be the return of Lucas Leiva, how we have missed that man! Here's hoping he and Liverpool can get off to a winning start with the Premier League just around the corner.

Next up for Liverpool though are two ties with FC Gomel in the Europa League and a friendly with Sami Hyypia's Bayer Leverkusen at Anfield.