Liverpool’s U23 side, which featured both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Joe Gomez as they step up their return from long-term injuries, dispatched with ease Leicester U23s at the weekend – on the same day we beat Chelsea at Anfield.
While it would be tempting to think that a couple of top-tier pros made all the difference today, it was actually the kids who shone brightest in this game. So let’s talk about a handful that look like they will make it at the highest level.
Name: Ki-Jana Hoever
Age: 17 Years, 3 months
Nationality: Dutch
Position: Centre Back, Right Back
Liverpool signed Hoever from under the noses of Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United in the summer of 2018, after the player made it clear he would not be signing pro-terms at Ajax.
In December, he moved to Melwood to permanently train with the first team squad. He was handed the #51 shirt and made his debut in January, coming on for Lovren after the Croatian picked up an early knock. He was one of the only positives in an otherwise disappointing evening for the Reds.
Today, he was one of the youngest players on the pitch. You wouldn’t have thoughts so with his performance though. He was extremely calm in possession and confident in stepping out with the ball. He also has an excellent passing range and will be a menace to any side that doesn’t pressure the ball high up the pitch.
Press resistance in the last line looks different from in midfield. In midfield, usually you are receiving and need to turn with the ball. Often needing to roll your marker who is right behind you. For Keepers and defenders though, you are often being pressed from the front and it is about finding a solution to the problem before the opponent can get close enough. Any time the opponent gets within touching distance, you risk them deflecting your pass, or getting a touch on the ball taking it away from you before you can execute your movement to escape pressure.
Hoever was generally excellent at this today. As you can see in the clips, the opponent is rarely not close enough to get the ball, so there is zero risk involved here. Hoever is reading the body shape and balance of the opponent, then using his own momentum to evade him.
However, later in the game, there was one moment he let Leicester’s no.9 get too close and it became a wrestling match for the ball. Hoever hasn’t filled out yet and doesn’t have Gomez’s physique to power out of situations right now. He stuck to his task well though, tracked back and nicked the ball away from him in the box. However, he almost immediately played himself into danger once more when attempting to chip the ball over an oncoming attacker only to see it break into the path of the Leicester striker, who fired over.
Still, the positives massively outweigh the negatives. Having a young kid who has spent his entire playing career to-date, playing a couple of age groups above his physical age, be overly confident in his own ability, is an easy problem to solve, as a coach.
Technically, he is already at a higher level than most players you will ever see at CB. Tactically, he seems to have good instincts too and reads play well. His level, physically, is the only big question mark still. He is 17 and hasn’t filled out his frame yet. He may also still have a growth spurt too. Van Dijk talked earlier this season about how, just before turning 17, he grew 18 centimetre’s in one summer. That will largely dictate his future on the pitch. There are not to many centre backs in the Premier League who are under 6ft. There are even fewer full backs who are towering in at 6’4”.
Name: Rafael Camacho
Age: 18 Years, 11 months
Nationality: Portuguese 
Position: Right Back, Winger
Signed from Sporting Lisbon almost 3 years ago, Rafael Camacho has been on the fringes of the first team for almost a year now. He was handed the #64 shirt when he was first named on the bench, back in April 2018, for the Merseyside derby.
He then enjoyed an impressive pre-season for the Reds as he saw plenty of time on the pitch, due to Trent Alexander-Arnold being on World Cup duty with England. He had to wait until January 2019, for the FA Cup 3rd round tie at Wolves, to make his senior debut for the Reds. However, he struggled to have much impact on a game that Wolves largely controlled against a second string for the Reds.
He made his league debut weeks later, coming off the bench in the final moments against Crystal Palace at Anfield, where he memorably nicked the ball away from Zaha in the box to prevent a dangerous chance for Palace.
While we have mostly seen him at right back in pre-season and his few minutes in the Liverpool first team in competitive action, he was playing at his more familiar right wing role today.
He will earn the plaudits for a hat-trick but how he played the role tactically was very impressive. He showed a good understanding with Brewster and there was a lot of positional rotation between the pair. They would take it in turns to come off the line short while the other would be stretching play vertically running in behind. They were constantly forcing the opponents to track their movement which was creating space inside their shape, between the lines. The main benefactor of this movement was often Jones who was able to isolate a defender ball-far-side all too often when play was switched out to him.
It would be wrong though not to talk about his goals. The first was almost Yeboah-esque in its beauty of pin-balling around inside the goal once it crossed the line due to the power behind it when it hit the underside of the bar. You can put 11 goalkeepers in there and you still don’t stop that shot.
The 6th goal, and the one that claimed his hat-trick, was the one that best exemplified that running off the shoulder mentioned above. The warning signs were there throughout the game as he was flagged offside on several marginal calls while trying to time his run to perfection. Here though, he stays level with the last man, drifts slightly right to stay in that space just outside the defence while also making a better angle for the through ball, then he tucks the ball in the corner with a tidy finish when it gets to him.
Jurgen Klopp loves a versatile player and Camacho is almost Mané-like in his ability to play anywhere across the front line. However, with a lack of quality full backs in world football, it seems that will be his best chance of getting a chance with the first team here. No doubt we see him do so in the summer once more in pre-season.
Name: Rhian Brewster
Age: 19 Years, 2 weeks
Nationality: English 
Position: Forward
Rhian Brewster followed academy coach, Michael Beale, from Chelsea to Liverpool at the age of just 15. His has shown maturity beyond his years already in his career, having become one of the figureheads in the fight against racism in football, despite being just 17 at the time.
He also gained notoriety for performances on the pitch, particularly at the FIFA U17 World Cup. He gained world-wide press attention for scoring successive hat-tricks against the USA and Brazil in the quarter-final and semi-finals respectively, en-route to the final where he scored the opener in a 5-2 win against Spain. His eight goals saw him lift the golden boot award as the tournament’s top scorer.
In a match that saw a winger score a hat-trick, a 17 year old stroll around the pitch at CB like van Dijk’s mini-me, and two full England internationals coast through a game without needing to get out of 2nd gear, it was Rhian Brewster that stood out the most. By some distance actually.
As an attacker, he will be judged on end product of course – and he has that in spades. What impressed me most today though was his attitude towards the game. Liverpool absolutely coasted through this game and even at 1-0 there was only ever going to be one winner.
Yet Brewster played the match like it was his World Cup final. With Liverpool already several goals ahead, he crunched into a 50/50 against a big Leicester defender on our right flank to win the ball and try to set Chamberlain away. This despite the fact he is just a kid still, it is meaningless game we have already won, and he has just spent the last ~15 months overcoming a horror injury for which he received oxygen on the pitch.
Minutes later, dropping off the line akin to Bobby Firmino, a pass into his feet was intercepted before it got to him. Aware that the Leicester counter attack was on, he tracked the Leicester runner from the Leicester half back to his own box just to ensure they never had a free man to play the ball to in attack.
After such a long injury, Brewster is still in that period where games are simply about fitness. There is no expectation on him other than to get some minutes in his legs and set himself up for a good pre-season with us in the summer.
Yet clearly, he has come back after such a lengthy lay-off determined to treat every minute on the pitch like it is his last. It’s the sort of grit, drive and determination that made Liverpool fans fall in love with the likes of Suarez and Firmino. It is a side of Brewster we hadn’t seen before. But I like it. I really like it.
Back to talking about his end product though, if you replay that match a thousand times, he is scoring a hat-trick in almost every one of them.
His first was a poachers goal – all about those predatory instincts we saw in the U17 world cup. Determined to be on top of the keeper for any rebound. It’s the sort of play that adds 5-10 goals a season to a forwards numbers even if they don’t make the highlight reels.
He was also the player fouled for Liverpool’s second to earn a penalty, which Woodburn slotted home. He peeled off into space on the back post and was about to head into the net, similar to Mané’s goal today, when the defender threw a high leg into him earning a blatant penalty and yellow card.
Then for Liverpool’s fifth, he is the player who times his run to break the offside trap, races away, lifts it over the onrushing keeper, and slides the ball into the empty goal. Sure, Camacho touches it over the line to get his name on the score-sheet, but the goal was all Brewster.
We shouldn’t end without some honourable mentions. Given the sad news of Tommy Smith’s death this week, we should talk about Liam Coyle who was very impressive in a Tommy Smith way in midfield. He threw himself into every tackle to take man and ball each time. Hard but fair.
Ben Woodburn was also very quietly very effective in midfield. Very tidy, kept his position well, very disciplined to not just bomb burst forward for his own numbers when ahead. He lacks that explosiveness to perhaps be a top tier forward at the highest level. Similar to Scholes in that sense, who moved back from forward to AM, then CM.
Curtis Jones grabbed himself a good goal and also could have had a few more with a better break of the ball. He held his position well on the left and was always an outlet, causing major problems for Leicester every time he got on the ball.
There is a group of very useful kids coming through at the moment. Many of them will get the chance to show Klopp in the summer that they are ready to battle it out for a chance in the first team.