Former Liverpool defender Tony Gallacher has hailed one of his ex-team-mates, and described how the coaches at Anfield influenced his game. The Reds sold the 23-year-old left-back to Scottish club St Johnstone in January, and left Anfield with one senior appearance to his name.
Gallacher departed Anfield after making 49 appearances for Liverpool’s under 23s, including nine this season. His one outing for the first-team came in the 5-0 defeat to Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup quarter-final in December 2019.
Speaking about his time at Liverpool, Gallacher has expressed his delight at several of his former team-mates doing well in the first-team fold. The full-back reserved particular praise for Harvey Elliott.
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“When Harvey Elliott was signed, me and him were quite close but he quickly shot up to the first team!” Gallacher told The Courier .
“It’s great to see him doing so well.
“Over the last few months a lot of players I’ve trained and played with have got a chance in the first team – Tyler Morton, Caoimhin Kelleher, Leighton Clarkson, Conor Bradley and others.
“It’s a big achievement to get there and hopefully they can keep doing well.”
Gallacher went on to talk about the standards the coaches at Liverpool’s academy set during his time on Merseyside. The full-back described how the staff at Kirkby give young players reality checks when they progress through the ranks.
“The coaching staff set very high standards as you would expect,” said Gallacher.
“If you think you’re just going to keep going up automatically, they give you the realisation of what sort of effort on and off the park that’s going to take.”
