Liverpool’s widespread injury crisis forced Jurgen Klopp to delve deep into the academy ranks for his matchday squad for the FA Cup fifth round clash against Southampton on Wednesday night.
While he put his faith in youth through necessity, the kids rewarded him as all three goals were netted by 18-year-old (Lewis Koumas and two from Jayden Danns), while the German also gave Trey Nyoni a senior Reds debut at just 16.
The longest-serving current manager in the Premier League will be stepping down at the end of this season, having taken over at Anfield on 8 October 2015, a date which now seems quite a long time ago.
Indeed, the majority of the 16 players who featured for Liverpool last night hadn’t even reached their teenage years, as illustrated in the graphic below, which gives the ages of every Red who played against Southampton on the day that Klopp took charge of LFC:
From that, we can see several astonishing facts which contextualise not just how young a line-up we had against the Saints, but also how long the current boss has been at the helm:
- Only three (Van Dijk, Tsimikas, Gomez) had turned 18 by the time Klopp became Liverpool manager
- More than half of the players who featured for the Reds last night were born in 2003 or later
- Nine of the 16 who played for LFC last night hadn’t been born when Klopp began his first managerial job at Mainz in 2001
- Three of those hadn’t even been born when Liverpool won the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul
- Our eight-oldest player against the Saints (Jarell Quansah) only made his senior debut six months ago
- It was eight years, four months and 21 days ago that Klopp first came to Anfield. Incredibly, that means he’s been LFC manager for more than half of Trey Nyoni’s current lifetime.
The German has never been slow to give youth its fling at Liverpool, as the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott can testify.
Even still, it’s only when you step back and assess the context that you’ll truly realise just how young a line-up the Reds fielded against Southampton, and how remarkable well they did to defeat a promotion-chasing Championship side 3-0.