Hartlepool United manager Craig Hignett wants to take on Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool this pre-season

Pools will get their pre-season schedule underway at Billingham Town on Tuesday (7pm kick-off) before facing Shildon, Newton Aycliffe, Middlesbrough, York City and Sheffield United under-23s.

Hignett is looking to secure a couple more friendly matches before the National League season gets underway on August 3.

And when asked which teams he’d hope to arrange a match with this July, the answer was simple.

“Liverpool,” the boyhood Reds fan smiled.

“If Jürgen wants to bring a team then, be my guest, I’d love to! Having watched them that much last season and how they played, that’s my idea of how you play football really if you look at how Liverpool play.

“We don’t know who we’ll play yet, that’s to be confirmed but there are one or two floating about.

“I wanted seven or eight games in so we might add two because come the start of the season, these need to be flying because in the first six weeks you play almost a quarter of the season so they need to be flying and ready for then.

“But they will be because they look fit, coming back they all look in good shape, they’ve all done a bit in the summer, we’ve done the blocks of work and had them in over the summer so I was pleasantly surprised with some of the results we got.”