Liverpool will land in New York just hours before kick-off in Wednesday's friendly against Wrexham after the club's pre-season tour was hit with travel chaos. The Reds' flight from Chicago was cancelled on Tuesday due to adverse weather conditions.
Plans disrupted by thunderstorms
Andoni Iraola's squad have been forced to change their plans and will now only arrive on the day of the game. Liverpool are based in Chicago during their tour of the United States and returned there after Saturday's 4-2 victory over Sunderland in Nashville.
But ahead of their second friendly, thunderstorms and heavy rain meant that they were unable to arrive in New York on Tuesday as planned. Not only has the cancellation affected Iraola and his players' preparations, but also the reveal of Liverpool's new away kit.
Kit launch affected
Several first-team players were scheduled to attend an event at Brooklyn's Skylight at the Refinery to show off Adidas' latest product. Instead, Liverpool legends Ian Rush and Robbie Fowler stepped in to model what the Reds will be wearing on the road in 2026-27.
Liverpool's clash with Wrexham will be played at Yankee Stadium, the home of baseball's New York Yankees. The stadium holds 47,309 fans and it's a special ground to Iraola, who ended his playing career with New York City FC in 2016.
Returning players
Despite an injury to Joe Gomez in Nashville, Iraola will have a bigger squad to choose from. Ryan Gravenberch, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak have all returned to training, although they may not be involved this early into their respective pre-seasons.
"The three players that are going to join us are going to be [in the] second week fully with us," Iraola told a press conference last week. "The ones that were [eliminated] from the World Cup, they all - because of different reasons - have individual days for their arrivals, but I think the sooner we can start working with them and they can understand what we want from them the better."
Meanwhile, Alisson Becker, Cody Gakpo and Virgil van Dijk will start their individual programmes at Liverpool's AXA Training Centre in Kirkby while their team-mates are stateside. "They will, in terms of dates of training, be very similar but they will start training at the AXA in Liverpool," Iraola confirmed.
