Gerrard Looking Forward to U18 Season Opener

Liverpool U18s will be meeting Derby County in their season opener today, and Steven Gerrard is just a tiny bit excited to see his first competitive game as manager.

“There’s massive excitement for me and my coaching staff,” Gerrard told the Liverpool Echo, presumably while doing a little jig of joy. “We are a bit of a new team and we feel like we have done everything we can to prepare the players.

“All the training is done now and the responsibility is over to the team to go and carry out those instructions and try to get us off to a positive start.

“This is what it’s all about - the day I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I want to win and so do my coaching staff and my players.”

The game is a Liverpool game, however, and comes with its own host of injuries as a result. Elijah Dixon-Bonner, Tom Clayton, Neco Williams, Dan Griffiths, and Paul Glatzel will all miss today’s game and, in true Red tradition, Gerrard will be relying on his midfielders to make do defensively.

“The injuries are disappointing and it’s left us a bit short defensively,” Gerrard said. “I’ve got a couple of midfielders who will do a job for me in those positions at the back. That’s where our issues lie. I am hoping in a month or two we’ll have a settled back four.”

Fingers crossed that this is the only injury crisis the U18s face, especially as Klopp continues to look to the youth teams for additional squad depth.

Liverpool vs. Derby County will kick off at 1 PM GMT (9 AM ET) at Derby County Training Ground.