'Look at his performances': Liverpool coach says Reds have a 17-year-old who is playing well above his age
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Liverpool could be set to dip into their academy for Wednesday’s game against Brighton.
The Reds are in the midst of a fairly punishing schedule and with the Carabao Cup low down on their list of priorities, they’ll need to rotate at the Amex Stadium.
Some injury problems and the fact that the Liverpool squad is relatively lean anyway mean that Arne Slot does not have too many options if he wants to rest key players.
The midfield in particular is where the Liverpool head coach will surely want to mix things up a little.
Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai have all played a lot this season, while Curtis Jones has come into things much more recently, too.
Wataru Endo is set to start but aside from the Japan captain, Slot may look to utilise academy prospect Trey Nyoni, too.
Barry Lewtas hails Trey Nyoni development
Nyoni is a big prospect. Despite being just 17, the former Leicester City midfielder has already made an impression on Slot.
Slot raved about Nyoni during pre-season and with the likes of Stefan Bajcetic and Bobby Clark no longer present at the club, Trey is next in line should the Dutchman need another midfielder.
According to The Athletic, though, both Endo and Tyler Morton remain ahead of Nyoni and are therefore more likely to get ‘extended minutes’ against Brighton.
Nevertheless, Liverpool academy coach Barry Lewtas is quoted as being very happy indeed with the progress shown by the youngster.
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“The kids are young and they will always have moments in the games where you're wanting to see more, but look at his performances last season, they were not at the level of a 16-year-old,” raves Lewtas. “They were a lot more."
“Everyone just grows and matures, and training with those types of players [in the first-team] day in and day out, you are certainly going to learn and develop.
"I've seen improvement in all the players but certainly for him, he's up against real quality every day. You can definitely see that he's on the right path and that is really important."
Will Trey Nyoni get minutes against Brighton?
As Slot looks to get the most out of this difficult run of Liverpool fixtures, he has no choice but to chop and change against Brighton.
The Reds are in action against the Seagulls once again on Saturday and it’s fair to say that supporters would much rather win that game than this one.
Consequently, our predicted Liverpool XI to face Brighton is one which includes a start for Nyoni.
We think without real options to rotate at right-back, Slot may be tempted to stick Morton in at full-back and start Nyoni in midfield alongside Endo and Szoboszlai.
If the 17-year-old starts from the bench instead, then we think it’s fair to assume that he’ll get some kind of time to make an impact as a substitute.
