Andoni Iraola says Liverpool are working hard to help “elite” teenager Rio Ngumoha fulfil his potential, insisting the winger’s rapid rise to the England senior team is “not something normal” for a player of his age.
Rio Ngumoha who turned 18 on August 29, became England’s third-youngest player to feature in a competitive international, behind Jude Bellingham and Wayne Rooney, when he came off the bench in a 2-0 win over Czechia last month.
The former Chelsea winger impressed in Liverpool’s 6-3 Champions League victory over LASK on Wednesday, prompting Iraola to highlight his obvious strengths while explaining how the club are working to develop his all-round game.
“I think he knows that he is elite at certain things,” Iraola said. “If you want to put someone one versus one then Rio is one of the best players you would choose because he is difficult to contain.
“There are areas he has to improve, especially without the ball. He has to get used to the demands of the Premier League in terms of duels and this happens when you come from the youth system.
“There you are used to being superior to the others and now you face very strong opposition and it is not easy to sustain those duels, but he is improving a lot.
“Body wise he is becoming stronger and I think he is in a good place. Obviously I had seen him play and we had played against him (at Bournemouth), but for us it is a privilege to have Rio in the team because he has just become 18.
“He has already played some minutes with the national team and that is not something normal. Normally you start playing with the national team when you are 20-something and you already have matured a little bit.
“We have to help him because luckily for us he is not the finished product. He can still improve because he is still 18 and I hope we can help him with these processes.”
On Bradley Barcola, who scored a hat-trick for the Reds against LASK, Iraola said: “In the case of Bradley it’s a matter of him getting into his rhythm.
“He’s done almost a pre-season while playing official minutes with us and the more he plays the better he will become.
“With other players sometimes they have ups and downs, or you see the player in a lovely moment or other times struggling.
“Sometimes you see them showing it in training before a game and you feel: ‘Oof, he’s going to play well tomorrow.’ Sometimes it doesn’t happen but most of the time you can feel when they are in a good place.”
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