Ipswich v Liverpool team news: Robertson starts, Johnson benched

Portman Road gets ready to host a Premier League match for the first time in 22 years this Saturday lunchtime.

Ipswich Town have secured back-to-back promotions to get back to the big time and their reward is an opening-day clash with Liverpool.

Kick-off at Portman Road is at 12.30pm BST.

Most Fantasy Premier League (FPL) interest will be in the visitors.

Their starting XI is the same one that lined up against Sevilla last weekend, with one exception – Andrew Robertson is deemed fit enough to start at left-back, so Kostas Tsimikas makes way.

Diogo Jota, Mohamed Salah and Luis Diaz make up the front three, with Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo among the substitutes.

£4.5m FPL defender Jarell Quansah is part of the backline.

Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna includes new signings Sammie Szmodics and Kalvin Phillips in his squad, albeit only as substitutes.

And also on the bench is Town’s most-selected FPL player, the 3.9%-owned £4.0m defender Ben Johnson.

Their line-up actually shows five changes from the final one that McKenna sent out in pre-season, Johnson being one of them.

One alteration is enforced, however, with goalkeeper Ari Muric missing out with a calf injury.

Replacement Christian Walton is, alas, not a £4.0m understudy in FPL but the same price as Muric.

Marcus Harness, George Edmundson and Cameron Burgess also make way from the win over Nice.

In come Conor Chaplin, Jacob Greaves, Wes Burns and Luke Woolfenden.

LINE-UPS

Ipswich Town XI: Walton, Burns, Woolfenden, Greaves, Tuanzebe, Davis, Morsy, Luongo, Chaplin, Hutchinson, Delap.

Subs: Slicker, Phillips, Harness, Taylor, Burgess, Al-Hamadi, Johnson, Townsend, Szmodics.

Liverpool XI: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Quansah, van Dijk, Robertson, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Szoboszlai, Salah, Jota, Diaz.

Subs: Kelleher, Endo, Konate, Nunez, Jones, Gakpo, Elliott, Tsimikas, Bradley.


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