Rio Ngumoha has set out a clear message in Liverpool’s preseason: he wants minutes, responsibility and a chance to prove himself. The teenager said he \u201cjust wants to play\u201d and show Andoni Iraola what he can offer, with a valuable opportunity unfolding during a summer in which Liverpool’s left-side options are already under pressure.<\/p>\n
Cody Gakpo’s future remains uncertain, while Liverpool have already invested in V\u00edctor Mu\u00f1oz for Ngumoha’s position. Interest in Bradley Barcola would only sharpen the battle for places. Although Barcola can also operate on the right, his career has been built mainly on the left, the same role where he excelled most with Paris Saint-Germain.<\/p>\n
Ngumoha has made strong use of preseason so far. He has played 45 minutes in each of the wins over Sunderland and Wrexham, both matches featuring heavy rotation. Against Wrexham on Wednesday night, he scored the only goal at Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been good,\u201d the youngster said of his experience to Liverpoolfc.com. \u201cAll the lads are treating me like I\u2019m a professional player. Obviously, I\u2019m still young and I\u2019m learning, but all the players have been top. It has been good.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely, [it\u2019s an important preseason]. On from the end of last season, I just want to play and start as many games as I can. These games are a really good showcase to show the manager, because it\u2019s a fresh start for everyone. It\u2019s really important and it\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n
That determination to \u201cshow\u201d Iraola what he can do reflects both the scale of the chance in front of him and the need to seize it quickly.<\/p>\n
Liverpool are still working with a largely young group at this stage of preseason. Gakpo has only just returned to training after his World Cup involvement with the Netherlands, while Mu\u00f1oz, part of Spain’s squad, will not return until mid-August.<\/p>\n
There are three preseason games left for Ngumoha to strengthen his case. Liverpool face Leeds United in Chicago on Aug. 2, before returning to Anfield for matches against Monaco on Aug. 9 and Como on Aug. 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ngumoha is using preseason to press his case as Liverpool weigh up growing left-wing competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18143","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=18143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}