Liverpool Players Aim To Prove Worth In AS Roma Game, US Tour

Liverpool US Tour 2014 Liverpool FC arrived in Boston on Sunday afternoon, and the Reds are already hard at work.

Liverpool is spending the week in Boston as it prepares for the International Champions Cup and the 2014-15 season, in which it will compete in four competitions.

Much of the Reds’ Boston stay will be devoted to intense preseason training sessions, but the highlight will be when Liverpool takes on Italian club AS Roma in a prestigious exhibition game at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Fenway Park.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers brought a star-studded squad to America for preseason training and a full slate of exhibition games. The Reds’ roster includes many of the players who led Liverpool to a second-place finish in the Premier League last season, including club captain Steven Gerrard, defensive lynchpin Martin Skrtel, playmaker Philippe Coutinho, budding star Raheem Sterling and goal-scoring hero Daniel Sturridge. These players will be key figures this season, and Liverpool is using the U.S. tour to build up their fitness levels ahead of the start of the season.

While the aforementioned names are familiar to the estimated 31.5 million fans who watched the Premier League in the United States last season, there are other players — new faces as well as old ones with something to prove — to whom fans should pay attention when watching Liverpool practice and play in the United States.

We’ll discuss some of them below:

New signings
Liverpool already has signed four players this summer, and they all traveled to Boston. Striker Rickie Lambert fulfilled a lifelong dream to his boyhood club when he signed from Southampton in June. Adam Lallana and Lazar Markovic, two marquee summer signings, also will bolster the Reds’ attack in the near and distant future.

There are more signings to come. Stay tuned to NESN.com for all Liverpool’s comings and goings in the summer 2014 transfer market.

Hot prospects

Preseason training offers young players a great chance to impress Rodgers, and there are plenty of them in the Reds’ traveling squad. Sterling is the inspirational figure, as the 19-year-old rose from prospect to 2014 World Cup participant in the last 12 months. Fullback Jon Flanagan nearly reached the same heights after a string of fine performances toward the end of last season.

Attackers Jordan Ibe and Conor Coady are looking to establish themselves in Liverpool’s first team in 2014-15, as is midfielder Joao Teixeira.

The youngest of them all is midfielder Adam Phillips. The 16-year-old tweeted his delight upon discovering that he would be going on tour.

[tweet https://twitter.com/adamphillips5/status/489494989786058753 align=’center’]

Forget me nots
Liverpool loaned a number of players to other clubs in 2013-14 in order to further their development and balance its squad. Many of them have returned to the Reds, hoping to stick with the Reds for the duration of 2014-15 and beyond.

Winger Suso and defenders Thiago Ilori and Sebastian Coates fall into this category, as does fullback Jack Robinson.

Meanwhile, Martin Kelly has recovered from a knee injury which limited him to nine games over the last two seasons. Like the others, Kelly can establish himself in Rodgers’ rotation with strong performances during the U.S. tour.