Joe Gomez has endured a frustrating 2019, despite winning the Champions League with Liverpool.
The centre-back was Virgil van Dijk’s undisputed first-choice partner this time last season, before suffering a broken leg away to Burnley.
Joel Matip then made the spot his own in Gomez’s absence and the youngster has struggled for playing time since, with Dejan Lovren occasionally being preferred to him, too.
The 22-year-old has also been in the news following his bust-up with Raheem Sterling last week, which ludicrously led to him being booed by his own fans at Wembley.
Someone who has no doubt about Gomez coming through this testing period in his career is Rio Ferdinand, who told JOE that he believes this is nothing more than a “sticky patch”:
Listen, Joe Gomez is going through a sticky patch at the moment but young players have to understand that they’re going to get that.
Even for the elite players that make it, there’s going to be down times and negative times in their career. Can you deal with it?
Have you got the mental capacity, have you got the tools to deal with these type of things?
Gomez is going through that now but he has all the attributes to be a top player.
He’s shown over good periods of his career at Liverpool that he looks a top player that can come in, in a few years.
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It is so easy to forget that Gomez is still only 22, with so much more to come from him.
Young players will always experience highs and lows in their career and Gomez will become a more consistent presence over time.
He has been hugely unfortunate with injuries, but he has the ability to be a future world-class centre-back.
Patience is required with Gomez, but as time passes, he will become a regular again.
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