Liverpool U21s comfortably beat Wolves U21s 4-0 at Anfield this evening in a game that those who like a good cliché – such as myself – would call a game of two halves. The deadlock was broken in a pretty uneventful first period just a few minutes before the interval by Jack Dunn with piece of real quality that was at odds with how the game had been played up to that point.
Liverpool were 2-0 and then 3-0 up in mere minutes after the break as Dominic Iorfa put the ball into his own net after good work on the right side by Dunn, before Jordan Lussey put the result beyond doubt as he placed a neat header past Jon Flatt in the Wolves goal, an effort which was set up by a fine Vilyan Bijev cross.
It wasn’t long until the U21 Reds took a page out of their first team idols book by scoring a 4th goal thanks to the excellent Jordan Rossiter, whose display will only further the expectations of fans and coaches alike who see him as a huge prospect for Liverpool, despite his young age. His finish was one of a very composed player and it’s easy to see why he has been around the first team squad at stages this season.
The game was pretty comfortable for Liverpool from there on in, and could have increased their lead through Cameron Brannagan, Jerome Sinclair – who somewhat surprisingly was making debut at this level, despite having a first team appearance under his belt – and Jack Dunn, although Kristian Kostrna did almost get the away side a goal with a long range shot.
After the game, Alex Inglethorpe told me what he said to his players at half time in order to get such a response; “Wolves made it difficult for us in the first half, they closed the spaces between the lines and we jabbed our way through it and didn’t really play with any intensity so at half time we spoke about moving the ball more quickly, playing with fewer touches and recognising when we had momentum that there are areas of the box we should look to fill.”
Liverpool ended the game with seven scholars on the field, which makes the win all the more impressive, and that wasn’t lost on the manager either: “It’s easy to forget how young some of these players are, most Under 21 teams play maybe four or five scholars all year, and it’s nice that we have seven”
Alex also shared with us a slightly odd method he’d employed prior to the game to get his players ready to play at Anfield; “Before the game we watched a six minute documentary about Michael Owen. The reason we did that was because it included a lot of footage of Michael playing reserve and youth team football at Anfield when there was nobody there! I think [Anfield] is a fantastic place to come and make an impression like he did all those years ago and it can give an indication to the manager and support staff that a player is ready when he can perform at such a stadium”
It’s such forward thinking that has won Alex Inglethorpe many of admirers. He’s certainly won me over after telling me to bring my boots on Monday night (when the U21s take on Reading at Anfield) as he’s struggling to field a team due to injury, first team call ups and international call ups!
