People always try to learn something from pre-season, even though there really isn't anything to learn. Gauging how successful a team will be in the regular season based on pre-season results is like determining how good a steak will be based on how the cow interacts with other cows. You can guess all you want and say things that sound smart and write articles with titles like "5 Takeaways From Liverpool's Win Against AC Milan" or "5 Things We Learned From Watchng Bossie The Cow Chew Her Cud For 90 Minutes", but in the end you'll probably be wrong.
Liverpool played nine pre-season games this summer, and I watchedf all nine. I must have learned something from that, right? That's a lot of games!
Nope. I didn't learn anything. The final two games of the pre-season were Liverpool demolishing Barcelona, 4-0, at Wembley and then getting trashed, 4-0, by Mainz less than 24 hours later. I defy any of you to try and make sense of those two results.
How are Liverpool going to line up against Arsenal? I don't know, and neither does Jurgen Klopp (at least that's what he's saying). Did Liverpool's last two games affect how Liverpool will line up against Arsenal? Maybe! Who's to say? I don't know. Jurgen Klopp might know, but that's about it, really.
A pre-season game is like a Vin Diesel movie, in that the proper way to enjoy it is to turn your brain off and simply be entertained for the duration and not write articles with titles like "5 Things We Learned From xXx: Return of Xander Cage". The only thing you can learn from that movie is that Vin Diesel rode a dirt bike on top of the water and the only thing you can learn from the pre-season is Roberto Firmino is still helicoptering fools into oblivion.
On the whole, these are not particularly important things to learn, but they're all we've got, which is fine, because the games start to matter in less than a week.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus
