Where The Hell Is Kaide Gordon?

Remember Kaide Gordon? Two years ago the youngster was being labelled as the future replacement for the Egyptian King, Mo Salah. After signing for 3 million GBP from Derby County, some top performances for the U23s and high praise from Jurgen Klopp, the hype surrounding the winger was immense.

For most fans we only saw glimpses, rumours and endless YouTube videos of his best moments at youth level. We had to rely on hear say, praise from his coaches and team mates and his solitary senior goal against Shrewsbury Town in a 4-1 FA Cup triumph for the reds, which made him the clubs second youngest ever goalscorer.

"“That’s Kaide. In these situations, he’s really calm,” said Klopp as he reflected on the goal during his post match press conference.“I will not say that for the rest of career he’ll always score in these situations, but I’m pretty sure [he will] more often than not!“Because that’s just him, when a cross comes from the left side, you will find him in the box. He’s good there as well – he has a nose for that, that’s really helpful.“I know he’s the second-youngest goalscorer for Liverpool, which is absolutely exceptional, but there’s a way to go.“No problem, Kaide has time, we will give him time, he will have his minutes here and there, and if he’s working as hard as he has so far.”"

However, just as it looked like Kaide Gordon would cement his presence in the Liverpool first team squad he seemingly disappeared and has not been seen and was rarely talked about for the entirety of the 2022/23 season.

So what happened to Kaide Gordon and what does the future hold for one of football’s potential superstars?

After starting against Arsenal in the Carabao Cup semi final and making his Premier League debut against Brentford, Gordon was back on U21s duty against Leeds Utd when he stated to complain of pain in the pelvis area. The medical staff quickly got to work and after numerous tests it was concluded that he was suffering from nothing more than growing pains. Although this may seem like a pretty good prognosis, these muscular skeletal issues in youngsters can cause severe issues as the ligaments and tendons etc struggle to catch up with the growing body.

The initial prognosis was that Gordon would miss a few months of football as the physios worked their magic. However, despite reports that the youngster is back in training, he hasn’t played a competitive game of football since February 7th 2022 and Liverpool fans are hoping that this isn’t another story of a promising young talent lost to injury.

"“You have to be really careful with Kaide that we don’t put any false promises on anything. At the minute we are happy with where we are with him, and he is happy in terms of how he is progressing,” said Liverpool U21 coach Barry Lewtas in an interview with the Liverpool Echo in February 2023.“It will be great to have him back in the fold and hopefully we can do soon enough.”"

The long term issue with osteitis pubis is the imbalance that has been caused between the abdominal and hip abductor muscles. The Liverpool medical staff have to ensure that Kaide’s body is 100% right before sending him out to play again and this will depend on how bad the imbalance was in the first place and if he has continued to grow during his rehabilitation. In short the club are not taking any chances on a player they rate supremely highly.

So when will we see him back in action?

There is still no definite comeback date as far as I can see. But with pre season on the horizon and with Kaide already doing some training it seems practical that the club have held off until now to give him as much time as possible. This could mean a potential full pre season campaign that will leave him ready to go when the real thing kicks off again in August.