Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Liverpool, Premier League, Arne Slot, Football
Ryan Smart
Liverpool have been forced to take drastic action after what one of their top wonderkids has been doing in first team training.
The Reds played their first pre-season friendly of the summer on Saturday, defeating Championship side Preston North End 3-1.
Conor Bradley, Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo all got on the scoresheet on what was an emotional day for the club.
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Both clubs paid tribute to Liverpool star Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva, who were killed in a car crash in Spain in the early hours of July 3.
The Reds decided to delay the scheduled pre-season return dates for some of the players following Jota's passing.
As such, there were some first-team absentees at Deepdale, and opportunities given to some of the club's youth team players.
Among them was 16-year-old winger Rio Ngumoha, who joined Liverpool from Chelsea last year.
Aged just 16 years and 135 days, he became the youngest player to start a first team game for the Reds in an FA Cup third round fixture against Accrington Stanley in January.
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And Ngumoha proved that he has kicked on even further in the seven months since with another impressive showing on Saturday.
In January, Anfield Watch reported that Ngumoha had been 'terrorising' senior players with his skills ever since he had been called up to first team training by manager Arne Slot in October 2024.
It was added that Slot and his coaching staff had been 'mesmerised' by the youngster's performances, and that Liverpool had even been deleting footage of Ngumoha from their online video series, 'Inside Training'.
The report claims that the Reds are 'carefully managing expectations' over the winger, though attention on the wonderkid will surely grow if he continues to play a role in pre-season.
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According to journalist David Lynch, Liverpool are preparing a new contract for Ngumoha when he turns 17 next month and it remains to be seen whether he will play a more active part in the first team next season.
Lynch said: "It's clear that he's being groomed for a bigger role going forward. These [pre-season] games are a chance to impress and to show he's worthy of making a few more appearances this season.
"He's turning 17 soon, he'll be coming into that age bracket soon. I expect he'll sign a first professional contract when that comes up, and it is my understanding that it is very, very likely that will be announced soon.
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"Of course, from his perspective, he just wants to build on what he's done in the first team last season, stay around training and make a few more appearances."