Arne Slot said he wants Liverpool’s players and fans to show how much they missed the Champions League when the competition returns to Anfield on Wednesday.
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The new Liverpool boss is preparing his men to take on Bologna after they beat AC Milan 3-1 in their first match following a season away from Europe’s top club competition.
The Dutchman has hit the ground running after replacing Jurgen Klopp in the Liverpool hot seat and is chasing his eighth win in nine matches in all competitions.
“What I expect from our players, they’ve missed out on the Champions League for a year, so when they step out on the pitch tomorrow I want to see this, I want to feel this, that they feel like, ‘Oh, we missed this for a season, now a club of this standard we have to be ready’,” he said.
Bologna faces its biggest match in 60 years when it takes on Liverpool at Anfield, the sort of glamour fixture fans were dreaming of when the Serie A team surprised everyone by reaching the Champions League.
Last Italian champion in 1964, Bologna played in the old European Cup that same year but was knocked out of the competition in the preliminary round on a coin toss by Anderlecht.
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That is why this season’s campaign in the revamped Champions League feels much more like a debut than a return, and why some 40,000 fans celebrated in the centre of Bologna once qualification was secured last term.
Bologna finished fifth, its highest league placing since 1971, and took advantage of Serie A getting an extra spot in the elite club competition to try its luck against the continent’s best teams.
Without last season’s star players Joshua Zirkzee and Riccardo Calafiori, who both departed for the Premier League and now-Juventus coach Thiago Motta, Bologna were undoubtedly weakened over the summer.
Motta’s replacement Vincenzo Italiano has earned just one win from his new team’s first six matches in all competitions, with Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Atalanta its fifth stalemate this term.
-AFP
PREDICTED LINEUPS
Liverpool: Alisson(gk), Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson, Szoboszlai, Mac Allister, Gravenberch, Diaz, Gakpo, Salah.
Bologna: Skorupski(gk), Posch, Beukema, Lucumi, Lykogiannis, Aebischer, Freuler, Fabbian, Orsolini, Castro, Ndoye
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