Speaking on a recent episode of The Redmen TV podcast, Jack Gill discussed one of Liverpool’s youth prospects, Billy Koumetio.
Moving to Liverpool from French side Orleans on a free transfer last summer, the centre-back has gone on to make eight appearances for the Liverpool U18 side, one appearance for the Liverpool U19 side in the UEFA Youth League, and one appearance for the Liverpool U23 side.
The 17-year-old was also named in the Liverpool squad for the club’s 6-5 loss on penalties to Arsenal in the Community Shield earlier this year, however, he remained an unused substitute.
Despite having not made a first-team appearance, it would appear that the French U18 international is a player who Gill is extremely excited about, as, speaking on The Redmen TV podcast, he said:
“I was lucky enough to watch him for the U18s when Barry Lewtas was the manager against [Manchester] City and you see him and you go, ‘wow, he’s going to be some player.’ He commands everything, he’s excellent in the air, you can just tell he’s going to be a very good centre-back, and the fact that he skipped the U23s [and] gone straight to the first team and Klopp clearly thinks of him so highly – I think he’s going to be a real, real serious player in the future, and I’m really excited to see his progression.”
Can you see Billy Koumetio breaking into the Liverpool first team this season?
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TIF Thoughts…
From Gill’s comments, it is obvious how highly he rates Koumetio, and also that he holds the belief that the Liverpool manager, Klopp, has a similar opinion of the 17-year-old.
Following the sale of Dejan Lovren this summer, Liverpool have been left with only Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip as senior centre-backs in the first team squad, which means that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that we could see Koumetio in and around the first-team squad on a regular basis in the not so distant future.