Georginio Wijnaldum hopes Liverpool can begin the new season on a positive note by overcoming treble winners Manchester City in the Community Shield on Sunday.
Liverpool are 3.60 to win, the draw is 3.60 and City are 2.00 to come out on top at Wembley.
The European champions went down 3-0 to Napoli in their last pre-season outing and take on Lyon in their final warm-up fixture on Wednesday. Wijnaldum has called for a response against the French outfit ahead of their meeting with City.
“It’s [pre-season] all about making minutes as much as possible, but also to get the results,” he told the club’s official website. “The season already starts [on Sunday], so the result [against Lyon] and the performance, it’s important for us to get confidence and to keep on going. This is painful but we have to learn from it and we have to strike back.”
He added: “We play the games to win the games, but unfortunately we didn’t win them. Especially if you play like [against Napoli] it’s really painful to lose the game because normally we are quite good with the pressing and creating chances and playing football, but we were not 100 per cent concentrated.
“We didn’t do it as a team, we made too many mistakes and they took the chances that they had. If you play a good game but you lose it’s different, especially in pre-season, but if you lose a game like this it’s painful.”
Liverpool are 3.40 to win the Premier League this season and 7.50 to successfully defend their Champions League crown.
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