Liverpool vs Kaiserslautern - British Eurosport at 4.30

British Eurosport will be broadcasting full, live match coverage of Liverpool’s pre-season friendly with Kaiserslautern on Saturday.

The Merseyside team’s pre-season preparations continue with a match against Bundesliga side Kaiserslautern in Liechtenstein.

New £6.7m signing Jermaine Pennant will be making his debut for the Reds in this match which will be shown live on British Eurosport from 4.30pm.

The game will give Rafa Benitez a chance to see other new signings Craig Bellamy, Argentine U-21 Gabriel Palleta and Brazilian left-back Fabio Aurelio in action before the Charity Shield.

GONZALEZ STARTS, PENNANT ON THE BENCH

Jermaine Pennant will start on the bench against FC Kaiserslautern today with Rafael Benitez giving youngsters Paul Anderson, Jack Hobbs and Lee Peltier another chance to impress during pre-season.
Liverpool will line up as follows:

Dudek

Peltier
Hyypia
Paletta
Traore

Anderson
Hobbs
Zenden
Gonzalez

Fowler
Bellamy

Subs:

Reina
Finnan
Riise
Garcia
Aurelio
Pennant
Sissoko

Nice one! I have the family pack for free for 4 weeks - and Eurosport is one of the channels!

2-2 15 mins to go. WHat a waste of 90 mins!

REINA THE MIDFIELDER CAN'T SAVE REDS

Liverpool might have missed out on the city's comedy festival while staying at a pre-season camp in Switzerland, but Rafael Benitez clearly entered into the spirit of fun by playing Pepe Reina as a midfielder during a 3-2 defeat to FC Kaiserslautern.

With the game level at 2-2 after Craig Bellamy had scored his second goal in three games and Luis Garcia had given the Reds a brief lead, Benitez found himself short of available players and decided to throw on the Spanish goalkeeper as a makeshift midfielder.

While the crowd of 2,800 in Liechtenstein couldn't believe what they were seeing, Reina twice went close to grabbing the winner before Marcel Ziemer subjected Liverpool to their first pre-season defeat of the new campaign with an 87th minute strike.

Having been a goal down early in the second half, Liverpool looked to have won the game until two late strikes swung the game in Kaiserslautern's favour.

With fitness the only real concern of Benitez at this stage of pre-season, you can't imagine the Liverpool will lose much sleep over Saturday night's result.

Truly awful commentators and camera angle, pitch was poor and the first half was a non event.

When the real football players started replacing the boys in the second half the game changed.

The first goal we conceded was pure naivety, it was a dangerous pass by Lee Peltier back to Hobbs, Hobbs was reluctant to use his left foot to clear first time and tried to control it but his touch was poor and they sneaked in for an easy finish.

Our first goal was created by Garcia skipping past a few players near the bi line from the left and then squaring the ball to Bellamy for a nice first touch on his right and a comfortable finish on his left.

Our second goal involved a neat one two between Pennant and Bellamy resulting in Pennant sliding the ball across from the right hand side of the box for Garcia to tap in.

Their equaliser came from Dudek giving a dodgy looking pass to Hobbs but he still should have done better, Hobbs tried to take the ball onto his right but his touch was again poor and it gave the opportunity for the opposition player to take the ball close to Dudek and then square it to a team mate for an easy tap in.

Their winner came from a long ball I think, Dudek came out to meet a player rushing onto the ball but stood off him and off balance he lobbed the ball over Dudek with Hobbs trying to rush back to clear of the line but failed.

It seems as though Garcia and Aurelio picked up minor knocks in the second half and with outfield players left on the bench, Reina came on and Fowler came back on after being substituted earlier.

A couple of observations from the game:

- Our youngsters are still some way off before being serious options for the first team squad, all those people raving about Anderson need to take a step back and let the boy develop physically, his game is good for a 17 year old but not outstanding, some way off in my opinion.

- NOTE TO RAFA: It is unadvisable to partner a 17 year old boy with Troare at centre back, his confidence must be rock bottom right now. Troare was AWOL most of the time and never made any attempt to keep a line with Hobbs let alone keep the whole defence in line.

- The fitness aspect is the most important thing at the moment, but it was a bit disappointing in the first half, it looks as though it was their first pre-season game rather than their third.

- We have 2 more games before the Community Shield and all the world cup boys will be back in contention for the game next Friday.

- 2 very poor goals were Hobbs was largely at fault, but Peltier and Dudek take a little blame. Good to see Zenden play 90 mins.

RAFA FACING ANXIOUS WAIT OVER INJURIES

Rafael Benitez faces an anxious wait to see how serious the injuries sustained by Luis Garcia and Fabio Aurelio are after the 3-2 defeat by Kaiserslautern.
The Reds manager says both players will be assessed further on Sunday at the club's training camp in Switzerland.

"It was a difficult game for us with the two injuries to Luis and Fabio and we made three mistakes which cost us the game," reflected Benitez.

"Luis had a problem with his neck and we decided the best thing would be to take him off. Fabio felt something in his calf and I think it's a more serious problem than Luis.

"Overall I thought it was a typical pre-season game and we used a mixture of senior and young players. I thought Jermaine Pennant did a good job and played well. He showed the quality that he has."

Benitez also offered words of sympathy to 17-year-old defender Jack Hobbs whose mistakes led to the Kaiserslautern goals.

"I always say to a player when you make a mistake you have to work harder and make up for it in the next game," commented Benitez.

"I will comfort Jack as he is a young boy who will learn from this."

Has - you are reading too much into what was essentially an 'exhibition game'.

Shame Europsort only had 1 camera though! I left it at 2-2.

I’m not reading much at all into this match, like is said it is predominantly a fitness exercise.

How was Reina's outfield performance then?

feel sorry for hobbs .. he is a big talent and i hope he recovers from being a partner of traore

^^ lol

he'll be aite . . jus a par tof the learning curve

the eurosport comms - caple and farrar are the best - 10 times the knowledge of any on sky, bbc or itv.

I regard them as the 'Mr Europe' when it comes to football knowledge - but they arent commentatotor material. They do great features for FiveLive - no one can touch them.

But Eurosport commentators are commentating on games from a studio in London - and thats where they lose out.