Cody Gakpo shares Liverpool dressing room feelings on Rio Ngumoha after exciting reminder
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The 17-year-old underlined his huge potential with a game-changing cameo off the bench in the Reds' last-gasp 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest on Sunday.Ngumoha is still waiting for his first start for the defending champions in the Premier League with the vastly more experienced Gakpo and Mohamed Salah ahead of him in the pecking order for a place on the wings.But he has shown he can still impact a match from the bench and Gakpo, who was a teen star himself, with PSV Eindhoven, has spoken glowingly of the youngster.READ MORE: Liverpool given huge injury boost as Jeremie Frimpong returns to ease right-back crisisREAD MORE: Liverpool Champions League rematch confirmed after red card controversyThe Netherlands international said: "He's a very good player at this age already and he showed that again when he came on."I think everybody’s excited. We just have to wait and see what he will do in the next games when he’s playing and I think it’s up to him to keep improving himself in ways he can and to keep doing what he’s doing to become what he thinks and what we think and what we see he can be."So, yeah, very happy to have him on the team, obviously.
I think they all help each other as well to stay calm, and he’s doing that."I think Trey [Nyoni] is doing that as well, and they are often together. I think that’s very good for them."They don’t get carried away by either good or bad things that happen, and I think that will only benefit them in the future when they’re a little bit older."Ngumoha has now made 15 appearances for Liverpool this season.
The likelihood is the England youth international would have made more had it not been for the Reds' struggles earlier in the campaign when Arne Slot was loathe to expose to him to the troubles of the autumn.Back then Slot's side lost nine matches from 12, including five in the Premier League, which has effectively cost them their chance of retaining the title.In the 20 games since they have tasted defeat just twice to progress in the Champions League and FA Cup and put themselves firmly in the mix for a top-four finish in the Premier League.But Gakpo, who is within two goals of bringing up 50 for the Reds, admits it has not been an easy season."We were too inconsistent at times; to play one good game and then the level dropped significantly the next game," the 26-year-old said in a Q&A with the club's official website ahead of Saturday's home clash with West Ham United."But I think the last few weeks were better performance-wise and result-wise, if you exclude the last game as a performance."I hope we can keep this momentum that we have a little bit with keeping clean sheets and winning the games - and to also perform better - to end the season in a good flow and then at the end of the season we can really assess how everything went."As it stands now I think everybody will agree with me that it’s not the place where we would put ourselves at the beginning of the season, if you look at last season where we won the league and we were, in my opinion, very consistent in doing all the things on the pitch, also result-wise but also how we performed as a team, as an individual, as a unit."But unfortunately that’s also sometimes part of football that this happens. I think we are now in a better place than we were before and, like I said, we have to keep on building and stay together."Ensure our latest sport headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source.