Liverpool meet Crystal Palace in a battle for this season’s first piece of silverware in the 2025 FA Community Shield.
Liverpool come into this showpiece as the Premier League champions, whilst Palace are making their first appearance at this stage after they beat Manchester City in the FA Cup Final.
Team News
Alisson is available for Liverpool after he missed part of pre-season for personal reasons.
Conor Bradley (muscle), Virgil van Dijk (illness) and Joe Gomez (Achilles) are doubts for selection.
Ryan Gravenberch is available because his one-match ban only applies to league games, following a red card against Palace on the final day of last season.
Palace will be without Eddie Nketiah until late October at earliest after the forward suffered a hamstring injury during pre-season.
Caleb Kporha (back), Cheick Doucoure (knee) and Matheus Franca (unspecified) also miss out.
When is Kick-Off?
Liverpool meet Crystal Palace at Wembley Stadium, London, on Sunday 10 August at 3pm BST, live on TNT Sports 1 in the UK.
Stat Attack
- This is Liverpool’s first Community Shield meeting against Palace.
- Palace are making their first appearance in the Community Shield.
- Liverpool are chasing a 17th Community Shield title which would take them joint-second on the all-time list alongside Arsenal.
- Victory would see Palace become the first new winner of the event since Aston Villa in 1981, although Villa on that occasion shared the title with Tottenham after a 2-2 draw.
Prediction
Having invested heavily this summer on quality signings like Jeremie Frimpong, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike amongst others, Liverpool certainly do look like the team to beat such is the talent at their disposal but they however will need to first click as a team in competitive action.
Their defence however does look like it might be their weak point at present with just one clean sheet in pre-season but I expect that backline to become tighter as time progresses, which will only further consolidate their status as title favourites.
Palace though have been impressively stable in terms of squad signings and outgoing which can only be a positive because they’re coming into this game with pretty much the same squad that finished last season, aside from Nketiah who is a sizable loss in impact substitution options.
It is easy to get lured into a false perception about Palace’s stability allowing them to potentially hit the ground running but I expect them to take Liverpool seriously with a counter-attacking strategy, although the Reds probably will be too strong come full time.
Prediction: Liverpool 2-1 Crystal Palace
Result: Liverpool 2-2 Crystal Palace (Crystal Palace win 3-2 on penalties)