Jordon Ibe scored the equaliser as Liverpool were held to a 1-1 draw by a Malaysian XI in the final game of their pre-season tour in Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n
Brendan Rodgers named a strong side for the match but some hesitant defending from centre-back pairing Martin Skrtel and Dejan Lovren allowed the hosts to take the lead through striker Patrick ‘Ronaldinho’ Wleh.<\/p>\n
Ibe scored the equaliser with a powerful left-foot shot just before the half hour mark having cut in from the right. The keeper had little chance as the ball flew into the top corner.<\/p>\n
However, despite a number of other opportunities, Liverpool failed to find the net again. Lovren had four presentable opportunities from set-pieces while Divock Origi, James Milner and Adam Lallana might also have scored.<\/p>\n
The Malaysian XI had a few chances of their own as the game wore on but were denied by Adam Bogdan as the game ended all square.<\/p>\n
Liverpool started the match slowly and struggled for any fluency before Ronaldinho’s clinical finish shocked them into action. The Liberian international collected the ball from a knock down and surged past Lovren before stabbing the ball past Bogdan and into the far corner.<\/p>\n
There was almost an instant response from Liverpool after Milner and Henderson combined well before the latter flashed a cross across the face of goal, just out of reach of the onrushing Origi.<\/p>\n
The equaliser did come soon after though as Ibe picked up the ball on the right wing, jinked inside past his marker and unleashing a fierce, rising drive that flew into the near top corner.<\/p>\n
The winger had the beating of his man all game, going past him on the inside or the outside at will.<\/p>\n
Liverpool were unchanged at the start of the second half and Origi had a good chance having been played in by Henderson. His shot was smothered by goalkeeper Khalid though.<\/p>\n
A well-worked free-kick saw Henderson hang up an inviting cross for Lovren but he could only head over and the Croat missed another chance from a free-kick shortly afterwards, scuffing his volley into the ground and over after Skrtel’s knock down.<\/p>\n
Milner and Lallana both shot straight at the keeper when well placed as the Reds pushed for a second but it was almost the Malaysian XI who retook the lead after Skrtel’s slip let Ronaldinho in.<\/p>\n
Lovren got back to avert the danger on that occasion but Alberto Moreno needed to put in a despairing block late on after more confusion at the back for Liverpool while Bogdan was forced to make a smart save in the closing stages.<\/p>\n
1-1 it finished though and Liverpool will now return to Merseyside before travelling to Helsinki for their next friendly on August 1.<\/p>\n
Source: Sky Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jordon Ibe scored the equaliser as Liverpool were held to a 1-1 draw by a Malaysian XI in the final game of their pre-season tour in Kuala Lumpur. Brendan Rodgers named a strong side for the match but some hesitant defending from centre-back pairing Martin Skrtel and Dejan Lovren allowed the hosts to take the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":137277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-137276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/137277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}