Good afternoon and welcome to our live blog of the Premier League match between Chelsea and Liverpool. The action comes to us from Stamford Bridge and we will be looking forward to the kick off at 4.30pm. It’s an overcast day in London, mild and somewhat humid, there were a few spots of rain earlier and then some bright sunshine. Both teams will be eager to get the campaign off to a good start and we will bring you the news of the XIs that Jurgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino select in their bid to do that when ewe have the news about an hour before kick off.
It’s obviously a big day for both sets of fans but perhaps especially so for supporters of Chelsea. They are hoping that the former Spurs man is the manager to lead them back to the top of English football, but he certainly has his work cut out to do so. They finished a dismal 12th last term and the poor performance did for Graham Potter, who was once regarded as pretty much the brightest coach in the business. Will Chelsea also take a big bite out of Poch’s reputation? We will see.
One man who might help the boss is Nicolas Jackson, a new signing up front.
The pressure on the 22-year-old striker, who joined from Villarreal for £31million in June, to adapt quickly to English football has been increased by injury to fellow new signing Christopher Nkunku, who is now unlikely to play for the club before December.
The pair impressed in attack for Pochettino’s new-look side during the tour of the United States, raising hopes that the team’s struggles in front of goal last season had been fixed.
But injury to Nkunku – together with the departures of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and David Fofana (on loan), unavailability of Armando Broja and a failure to resolve the future of Romelu Lukaku – has left Jackson as Pochettino’s only available striker for Sunday’s Premier League opener against Liverpool.
The manager though said he had seen enough from the player, who netted 13 times in 48 games for Villarreal last season, to be encouraged that he is ready to take on the mantle of a Premier League goal-scorer.
“He’s a young player but he has the quality to be here and score goals,” said Pochettino. “We’re enjoying the way we are working, he’s working really hard, the quality is there. You can see (from) some games (he has played), he has the quality.
“LaLiga is completely different the Premier League. It was good to play the Premier League Summer Series in America to test the Premier League, that was really good for us.
“I have no doubt he’s going to score goals and the adaptation is going to be good because it’s not only his quality, it’s also his character. He has great character, his personality is strong. I’m sure he’s going to be good here.
“He’s so strong, he isn’t scared of (anything), he’s so brave, and you can see the quality in his feet. (He has) quality also in his physicality – he’s fast and he’s strong.”
