In a difficult season for Liverpool, 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha has offered a clear positive for supporters. His last-gasp winner in a 3\u20132 thriller with Newcastle United in August announced him to a wider audience, and although his minutes have been restricted since, the winger has already shown the traits that excite expectation.<\/p>\n
Ngumoha is perched in second place on Liverpool\u2019s list of youngest ever appearance-makers, having debuted at 16 years, 4 months and 13 days during last term\u2019s FA Cup. Only Jerome Sinclair was selected at a younger age. Since then his involvement has largely come as substitute appearances under Slot. The Englishman has produced effective cameos and has two goals in 24 first-team outings.<\/p>\n
That raw record invites comparison. Raheem Sterling, another wide forward taken from London as a teenager, registered 1 goal and 1 assist in his opening 24 Liverpool appearances. The early outputs between the two are comparable, though Sterling\u2019s breakthrough arrived more emphatically in his second full campaign.<\/p>\n
Ngumoha still has ground to cover before matching the early returns of some Liverpool academy graduates. Steve McManaman, who debuted roughly two and a half years older than Ngumoha, produced 4 goals and 5 assists in his first 24 games and went on to make 364 appearances before a move to Real Madrid.<\/p>\n
Michael Owen, a year older than Ngumoha at his competitive debut, managed 11 goals and 6 assists in his first 24 outings and helped Liverpool to a unique treble in 2000\u201301. He later became the second-youngest player to win the Ballon d\u2019Or. Robbie Fowler\u2019s initial output was even more prolific; the forward recorded 16 goals and 3 assists in the early sample and famously scored five in a cup tie with Fulham.<\/p>\n
Ngumoha\u2019s own ambitions are clear. “I\u2019m so confident in myself\u2014hopefully, a Ballon d\u2019Or,” Ngumoha responded when asked what he hopes to achieve during his career. “And also many club trophies with Liverpool\u2014many Prems [Premier Leagues], Champions Leagues, obviously everyone wants to win that.<\/p>\n
“But just to be regarded as one of the best players to ever play football.”<\/p>\n
His bravery, directness and agility have been obvious. Those qualities were on display in Liverpool\u2019s recent 2\u20130 win over Fulham, when his solo goal made him the youngest player to score at Anfield in the Premier League for the club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ngumoha is one of Liverpool’s youngest debutants, showing promise despite restricted first-team mins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,175],"tags":[1446,1484,1064],"class_list":["post-11791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-liverpool","tag-academy","tag-appearance-record","tag-ballon-dor-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}