Wisdom: My debt to teammates
Andre Wisdom has expressed his gratitude to the senior Liverpool players who have helped him make the seamless transition from Academy starlet to first-team full-back in recent weeks.
The 19-year-old has become a consistent starter under Brendan Rodgers since making his full Barclays Premier League debut against Norwich at Carrow Road in September.
The powerful right-back has been in exemplary form for the first team, demonstrating composure on the ball as well as a readiness to stand up to the challenge of tough, experienced opposition.
And he puts a large part of his fine form down to the guidance he has received from the likes of captain Steven Gerrard amongst others.
"It's been good making the step up," he told Sky Sports. "It's very competitive and hard but I think it's going well.
"With the players around me, the likes of Steven Gerrard, Martin Skrtel, Daniel Agger and Glen Johnson, it makes it that little bit easier because they're players with great amounts of experience and they pass it on to the young lads.
"It is difficult but that does really help, and it's important because to play in the Premier League you need more than just quality, you need to be mentally in tune as well.
"And that's hard when you're young because we're used to reserve-team football where you might get 50 people turn up to the game, so to go and play in front of 45,000 is a big shock."
Wisdom will be hoping for a starting berth when Liverpool make the short trip across Stanley Park to face high-flying neighbours Everton today.
And while he may be a Yorkshireman rather than a Liverpudlian, the defender knows exactly what type of fiery atmosphere to expect when the Reds walk out at Goodison Park.
"I've been to them and I can see the intensity and the fire in everyone's eyes," he said. "I've played in many reserve-team and youth-team derbies, and even in those the level of competitiveness is bigger than most games.
"It would be amazing to win. Everton have had a good start to the season but I think we have as well, even though the results haven't always gone our way. We just need to get the breakthrough, as we did last weekend.
"That's given the club a little lift and hopefully we can move forward and continue to keep our home record good as well as the away one.
"I think we should look forward and hopefully we can kick on by getting a few good results to help us up the table. But we just have to be patient. We're all willing to work hard and we all want the same thing, and that's to win games."
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