Arne Slot must decide whether to include teenager Trey Nyoni in the first-team squad against West Ham on Wednesday or the U21s’ EFL Trophy match on Tuesday.
Since Nyoni’s impressive pre-season, supporters have been eager to see what more he can bring to the table for Liverpool.
Slot has said there is “a fair chance” the 17-year-old will be involved for Liverpool against West Ham on Wednesday, but that will only be the case if he doesn’t feature for the U21s in their match against Harrogate’s senior side on Tuesday night.
The head coach explained on Tuesday: “Let’s see first how everybody comes in this morning and then we make a plan for every individual – where he is going to play and if they are going to play.
“The way I look at it now, there would be a fair chance for him to be in our squad instead of being with the under-21s, but it all depends on how fit the other players are.”
As one of the few youngsters involved with the first team not to go out on loan this season, there has been an expectation he will feature in some capacity under Slot in the coming months.
Wednesday’s Carabao Cup third-round tie presents a potential opportunity to make his first competitive Liverpool appearance since his debut against Southampton in February.
Nyoni’s development
Slot went on to speak about Nyoni’s development, adding: “He’s a young player, really young, only just became 17 but with a lot of talent that had some impact in pre-season, and when he played against Sevilla, he even scored a goal.
“So, a talent but only being a talent is not enough to play on a regular basis in the first team so we need to keep developing him.
“He needs playing time to develop and that’s why sometimes as a manager you might feel like, ‘oh, we might need him with the first team’.
“But it’s so, so important for him to keep playing his games.
“That’s why he played in Milan also with the U19s because for him to develop, he needs to train with us and he needs to keep having his playing time at the highest possible level.
“I think training with the likes of all the midfielders we have and all the players we have helps him to develop as well, so we’re taking good care of him and we’re aware of the fact that he is only 17.”
On Sunday, he and Tyler Morton both played less than 70 minutes before being substituted by coach Barry Lewtas in the U21s’ 3-1 win over Derby U21s.
Slot wasn’t asked specifically about Morton in his press conference but you would expect his thought process to be similar on the 21-year-old, who ran the game and scored against Derby at the Academy.
While Nyoni and Morton might not travel with the U21s to play Harrogate, a chance could fall to new signing Rio Ngumoha.
He arrived from Chelsea in the summer and has so far been playing for Marc Bridge-Wilkinson’s under-18 side.
Also in contention to play against Harrogate are the likes of Kieran Morrison, Trent Kone-Doherty and Amara Nallo, who are all viewed among the next big prospects to emerge from Liverpool’s youth teams.
This Is Anfield‘s Joanna Durkan will be at the match in Yorkshire to cover the EFL Trophy tie which kicks off at 7.45pm (BST) on Tuesday.
