'Curtis Jones put on a show, it was great for the young lads to see'

The Reds' U19s were in Portugal on Tuesday as they battled back to claim a 1-1 draw with their Porto counterparts in the UEFA Youth League that afternoon.

Bridge-Wilkinson, Barry Lewtas and the staff then took the squad to Estadio do Dragao to watch the senior sides face off in the Champions League.

Jones, who previously captained Liverpool on the Youth League stage, played a key role as Jürgen Klopp's men produced an outstanding European performance.

"We were sitting in the stand watching our first team in Porto [and] we saw Curtis Jones putting on a heck of a show," Bridge-Wilkinson told Liverpoolfc.com.

"Two years before that he would have been sat with us as part of our U19s squad, so that is really pleasing to see that.

"Going away from home in this competition allows us to take the boys to watch the first team in the evening and it was a great experience for everyone to see the first team play and witness the atmosphere.

"Our first team put on a bit of a show so that was really nice to see at first hand."

Earlier in the day, substitute Melkamu Frauendorf had grabbed the equaliser for the young Reds as he ran on to a searching pass from Tyler Morton and kept his composure to finish.

"I thought the lads did really well," said Bridge-Wilkinson.

"The game panned out probably not how we quite wanted it to in terms of in possession with the ball, but we created some good opportunities and had some good moments.

"We were really pleased to get the goal. It was a fantastic ball from Tyler and a fantastic run from Mel and it's something we talked about the day before, about that type of pass and type of movement that we felt might cause them problems.

"I was really pleased to see the boys taking that on and showing the bravery to go and do it.

"It's a good start to the group and we've got to be pleased.

"We managed to get the win at home against AC Milan and a point away from home against another really tough opponent.

"This is a really tough group and there's not going to be any easy games whatsoever, so to pick up four points at this stage, we've got to be really pleased with that."

The U18s return to domestic action on Saturday when they welcome Sunderland to the Academy, a game you can watch live on LFCTV and LFCTV GO, with kick-off set for 1pm BST.

The young Reds will be looking to bounce back to winning ways following their recent losses against Derby County and Leeds United.

"We are actually performing quite well, to be fair," said Bridge-Wilkinson.

"When you saw us go down to 10 men against Leeds United last week it then becomes that little bit tougher.

"That said, even when we were a man down we coped really well and we created some great chances but we didn't take them and if you don't take your chances that can cost you.

"We maybe defended a little lacklustre at times and we made some individual errors and individual decisions that maybe cost us a little bit, but we are really pleased so far.

"The results haven't been spectacular but the overall performances have been very good and there's still lots to build on.

"We are really looking forward to our next game against Sunderland on Saturday.

"This will be a really good game, it's always special to play on the main pitch in Kirkby, we are very fortunate we have it and hopefully the boys can play well and get the right result."