Liverpool's next star identified as Andoni Iraola admits pre-season 'surprise'
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A number of Liverpool;s younger players have impressed manager Andoni Iraola during the pre-season tour to the USAMuch of the focus may be on who Liverpool will be signing this summer, but Andoni Iraola has been blown away by the quality of the club's young players."A lot of players have surprised me, especially the younger players that I didn't know before," said the Reds boss on Thursday."Because the senior players, you've played against them, you more or less know them, but a lot the young players, they have given a very high level."Very, very high level in these friendly games. They still have room to grow, that is always very good."But has one of these previously untested youngsters impressed Iraola enough to be involved in his first-team?
Our writers pick out who has wowed them.Paul GorstAs Andoni Iraola himself pointed out, plenty of players were available for selection when choosing the most impressive youngster on the pre-season tour of the United States.Ifeanyi Ndukwe is someone who has shown already why the club was so keen to bring him in at the start of the year. That bodes well given the club look a bit light in that department right now.It's disappointing that work-permit issues will mean he has to go on loan but the spell elsewhere will surely lead to the sort of improvements now being targeted.Following his performances at the Under-17s World Cup in Qatar last November, interest in Ndukwe, alongside Mor Talla Ndiaye, was stepped up by Matt Newberry, Liverpool's director of global talent.And it's easy to see why the Reds expedited their interest to sign him from Austria Vienna in January.
It's just a shame that will have to be somewhere else on loan for now.Mark JonesThere are certainly players among Liverpool's young crop with higher ceilings, but in terms of making a useful impact on the first-team in the here and now - and if we're overlooking Trey Nyoni, who already has 20 appearances and should treble that number this season - then Lewis Koumas will have endeared himself to Andoni Iraola.The Welsh international will be 21 next month and so is hardly a fledgling any more, and as well as 12 senior international caps he is closing in on a century of senior appearances thanks to his loans at the Cities of Birmingham, Stoke and Hull.In his one competitive game for Liverpool so far he scored the opener in a 3-0 FA Cup win over Southampton in the dying months of Jurgen Klopp's reign, and he's found the net on tour when he added the fourth in the 4-2 win over Sunderland last weekend.This is of course a Liverpool squad that is short on attacking numbers, something that they need to rectify in the next month, but should Federico Chiesa be allowed to leave then there is surely an argument for keeping Koumas around until January at least, with appearances off the bench for Alexander Isak or A.N. All the latest news and analysis from Anfield on the Liverpool Echo's dedicated LFC Facebook pageGet Liverpool's new 2026/27 away kitThis article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it.