Liverpool’s predicted XI vs AC Milan as Hugo Ekitike decision made and ‘explosive’ youngster starts

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Liverpool play in front of fans for the first time in almost two weeks on Saturday as their tour of the Far East gets properly underway.

The Reds jetted in to Hong Kong last Sunday, and have spent the week acclimatising and training.

Hugo Ekitike has also been signed while Liverpool have been away from home, and the Frenchman is already training after joining the group.

As Arne Slot weighs up whether or not to throw Ekitike straight into the fire, here’s the XI we think he’ll send out to face AC Milan.

Defence

Predicting Liverpool’s team in these early games of pre-season is especially difficult. However, given Alisson Becker has only returned to training this week, we think it’s a safe assumption that Giorgi Mamardashvili will start.

Slot is likely to change much of the team for the second-half, though, so we’ll hopefully get a glimpse of Alisson after half time.

Slot went with Dominik Szoboszlai at right-back during last weekend’s behind closed doors friendly, but we suspect Conor Bradley will be returned for this one.

In the middle of the defence, Virgil van Dijk’s situation is not dissimilar to Alisson’s, meaning we may see a different two start the game.

With no other senior defenders to call upon, this is likely to mean Joe Gomez and Ibrahima Konate get the nod initially.

Liverpool have three options at left-back to pick from, but we think Slot will go for Milos Kerkez from the start.

Midfield

Given Alexis Mac Allister is still not training fully while out in Hong Kong, Liverpool’s midfield will look slightly different on Saturday.

We expect Szoboszlai to show his versatility and drop into one of the deeper-lying roles, showcasing where he could end up playing for most of the campaign.

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Set to be a key player once again, Ryan Gravenberch is likely to line up next to the Hungarian.

Then comes the exciting part, because after sitting out of the Preston match, Florian Wirtz looks set to be involved against Milan. He should start in his favoured attacking midfield role.

Attack

After Ekitike’s arrival, all eyes will be on whether Slot will choose to field his new signing.

However, given the 23-year-old only met his new teammates on Thursday, we would be surprised to see him start this one. He may not even make the bench.

As a result of Luis Diaz’s ongoing talks with Bayern Munich, Slot does have some decisions to make in attack, though.

Mohamed Salah is virtually certain to play, and Rio Ngumoha‘s ‘explosive’ pre-season could well continue as well.

Meanwhile, without a natural centre-forward aside from wantaway Darwin Nunez, we think we could see Cody Gakpo deployed through the middle on a one-off basis.