The 19-year-old will hope to maintain his place in the starting XI when Neil Critchley’s Premier League 2 table-toppers host West Ham United at the Academy on Saturday afternoon.
Ahead of that fixture, Liverpoolfc.com sat down with the former West Bromwich Albion prospect to hear his thoughts on the campaign thus far.
Read a full transcript below.
On his first full season with the U23s…
“I’m enjoying it. I think it’s a difficult step up from the U18s because it’s a lot more physical and you find yourselves playing against the senior players as well, but I’m enjoying it, especially working with Critch again. He has helped me massively. He has helped me technically, with and without the ball.”
On the narrow loss at Bristol City in midweek…
“It was a difficult game and it was hard to break them down. They were organised as a team and we had a new team which was quite young. Overall, we played quite well together and we had a lot of the ball but we didn’t take our chances when we got them. Their stadium was unreal. I didn’t realise how good their stadium was until we walked out onto the pitch. It was a good experience for us, especially for the younger lads who had a first chance to play at a first-team stadium.”
On the likes of Curtis Jones and Adam Lewis making the switch to U23 level…
“They are really talented young players. They have shown weekly what they can do with the U18s and everyone knows what good players they both are. Stepping up to the U23s shows that if they keep doing well they will keep getting the opportunities to push on.”
On facing West Ham...
"We are going into this game confident because we are still top of Premier League 2. We have got a really young team now so it’s just about how quickly we can work together as a team and hopefully we can get the three points. From past experiences playing against West Ham, they are always a good team. They have got good individuals, they are organised, so let’s see if we can break them down and win the game. We don’t really talk too much about our league position because we just take every game as it comes and concentrate on getting the three points.”
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On playing as a wing-back…
“It has been a new experience. Critch has seen that maybe because I’m good at crossing I can get chances to cross the ball in for our strikers. It’s a new role for me and I have enjoyed it. You have to be more switched on defensively when we play with three at the back and wing-backs, because you can get hit on the counter-attack. I just have to be aware of my position because I’m still learning where to be when we haven’t got the ball.”
On goal targets for the season...
“The ones against [Manchester] City and Everton stood out for me, but I just want to score more now before the end of the season and get my tally up."
Saturday's game against West Ham United is at the Kirkby Academy, with kick-off set for 3pm GMT. We will have delayed coverage on LFCTV and LFCTV GO.