Liverpool v Red Star Belgrade: Champions League – live! | Football

This is an excellent goal!

19 min: Salah darts down the right and combines with Fabinho. But when Salah tries to turn on the edge of the area, Stojkovic stands firm and wins the ball.

17 min: Stojkovic falls over Mane’s outstretched leg on the right. No free-kick. But Stojkovic gets back to his feet to win a corner for Red Star. The visitors are pressing. Ebecilio whips it in and no one in red tracks Babic’s run from deep. The defender’s allowed to creep into the six-yard box and he should give Red Star the lead, only to volley over from close range! Serbian heads are in Serbian hands.

16 min: We haven’t seen much from Liverpool’s front three yet. To be fair, they aren’t getting much service. Unfamiliarity in midfield isn’t helping.

15 min: “I see that Liverpool’s Swiss-Albanian playmaker Xherdan Shaqiri is starting against opposition from Serbia tonight,” Peter Oh says. “In a recent international match between Switzerland and Serbia, he took some heat for making a politically-charged, inflammatory gesture during a goal celebration. The gesture involved interlocking his thumbs to make a double-headed eagle. Try it out when you get a break from tapping your keyboard!”

12 min: After a brief delay, Borjan gets back to his feet, winces and points at his left wrist when the referee comes to check on him. On we go.

11 min: This is more like it from Liverpool, Shaqiri lifting a fine pass over the top of the Red Star defence to Salah. The Egyptian’s control is good as the pass drops out of the air but Borjan is out quickly to smother as Salah tries to take the ball round him. It’s brave goalkeeping from Borjan and he takes a whack from Salah for his troubles. He stays down and needs some treatment.

10 min: Liverpool attack coherently for the first time. Gomez wins the ball high and that leads to Firminho and Salah almost combining. The ball breaks to Firmino, who decides to lash one goalwards from the right of the area. The shot hits Alexander-Arnold, though, and flies behind.

9 min: Red Star continue to probe in Liverpool’s half, flinging a couple of crosses into the area. It’s a bit edgy at Anfield at the moment. There’s no flow to Liverpool’s game yet.

6 min: Red Star have made quite a good start. They aren’t sitting back. Liverpool haven’t settled yet and the visitors are looking to make the most of their early possession.

5 min: Ben Nabhouane turns cleverly on the right and wins a free-kick off Robertson. A chance for Red Star. But Alexander-Arnold heads the free-kick away.

4 min: In the other game in this group, it’s PSG v Napoli. You can follow that here.

3 min: Salah tries to burst down the right but Degenek’s across to shepherd the ball out of play. Moments later Boakye tries to run behind the Liverpool defence but the flag goes up for offside.

Peep! Red Star, in navy kits and kicking towards the Kop in the first half, get the game underway. Liverpool are all in red. Jurgen Klopp is wearing a baseball cap. Plus other clothes. He’s wrapped up warm. Quite right, too. It’s getting cold. I just sneezed.

Here come the teams. There’s an expectant mood rather than a febrile one at Anfield this evening. The home crowd will be anticipating a few goals from their side. Red Star Belgrade will have other ideas. Anyway it’s time for the Champions League anthem! Disgracefully none of the players sing along. They can all expect a stern call from Uefa tomorrow.

Tottenham have drawn 2-2 with PSV Eindhoven in Group B. That’s less than ideal. They could do with Barcelona smashing Internazionale now.

Jurgen Klopp speaks! “I don’t know if you can expect an away win at Napoli to be honest. I think the home games in the Champions League, with the quality of the other teams, you should not waste time. We have to try everything to win the game to have a normal situation, which doesn’t mean we are halfway through the group. It only means we have a normal situation, winning two home games and losing an away game. That’s it. Not more pressure. Only enough. Red Star were hard to break down in both games, even if the result in the PSG game sounds different. It is a very experienced side and they are used to getting results. They fight for results. That is what they will do now again.”

Liverpool make five changes to the side that beat Huddersfield on the weekend. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Gini Wijnaldum, Fabinho, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane replace Dejan Lovren, James Milner, Jordan Henderson, Daniel Sturridge and Adam Lallana. They possess impressive strength in depth at the moment.

Red Star Belgrade make one change to the side that beat Rad Beograd on the weekend. Out goes Veljko Simic, in comes El Fardou Ben Nabouhane.

Liverpool: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Shaqiri; Salah, Firmino, Mane. Subs: Mignolet, Moreno, Lovren, Milner, Sturridge, Lallana, Origi.

Red Star Belgrade: Borjan; Stojkovic, Babic, Degenek, Gobeljic; Krsticic, Jovicic; Srnic, Ebecilio, Ben Nabouhane; Boakye. Subs: Popovic, Pavkov, Stoiljkovic, Causic, Simic, Savic, Jovancic.

Referee: Daniel Siebert (GER).

Hello. Boring, boring Liverpool! After setting the pulse racing with their freewheeling attacking last season, Jurgen Klopp’s side have been a little more circumspect at the start of this campaign. They’ve only scored four goals in their last five matches and even settled for a 1-0 score line against Huddersfield last weekend, suggesting that Klopp is morphing into Germany’s answer to George Graham before our very eyes. Apparently this astonishing transformation is because Liverpool are concentrating more on ridding the spirit of Loris Karius from Anfield at the moment. But it might just be because their main attacking talents are slightly out of form at the moment. It’s been known to happen.

Even so, it’s a problem that wants fixing sooner rather than later. Liverpool’s movement has congealed in recent weeks and although it hasn’t had a major effect on their results in the Premier League, they find themselves in a tense situation in their Champions League group after stumbling against Napoli earlier this month. That defeat in Naples has given Klopp’s side some work to do in order to make the last 16, even though they still occupy second place thanks to their superior head-to-head record over Paris Saint-Germain.

It’s tight in Group C and Liverpool need to make the right moves in their double-header with Red Star Belgrade, the supposed whipping boys, before resuming hostitlies with Napoli and PSG. Red Star looked out of their depth against PSG last time out, losing 6-1 to the French champions, but they did hold Napoli in their opening game. They’ll come with a plan to frustrate. Klopp could do with Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane to fin their shooting boots in front of an expectant Anfield crowd this evening.

Kick-off: 8pm BST.