Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has hinted that Wales full-back Neco Williams will be used as competition for Trent Alexander-Arnold in the Reds starting line-up in the upcoming season.
The teenager was the hero in Wales’ Nations League win over Bulgaria on Sunday, netting the 94th-minute winner to take Wales to top of Group 4 of League After the opening two games.
Williams has come up through the youth system at Anfield and was promoted to first-team duties last season making six Premier League appearances.
The 19-year-old signed a new contract at Liverpool earlier this summer and is highly rated by the Reds’ boss.
“I think Neco is – how young players are – they are kind of ‘projects’. I don’t want to use that word, but with my English I don’t have a better one. There is a lot of work to do, but there is already a lot of skills and potential there and that makes it so exciting,” he told Liverpool’s official website last month.
“Neco from the first day he trained with us, he trained like a machine. Every day he became better and better and better and I thought, ‘OK, what’s that?!’
"Unfortunately then, in the moment he started playing for us, I saw it, he got a little physical knock, like it was always really intense all of the time. But then he had to play.
“The last game of the season against Newcastle is a really good example – first half, struggled slightly, [but] second half he was there.
“That’s exactly him in the moment and there is so much positivity about this kid that I am really happy we have him here. That’s very important for me because he is our boy and it is the perfect place for him in the moment because we don’t rush his career.
With the Champions League and two cup competitions as well as the Premier League to compete in this season, the number of games may mean that Williams gets more of a chance, which can only be good news for the national team.
“We want to prepare him for his career, yes, and in his position in which he will probably play, there is a really, really good player in that position," Klopp added.
"But Trent cannot – and should not and never did – play 500 games a season, so we need to have options there. Neco is as close as possible for his age group."
