Academy Spotlight: Trey Nyoni could be the next Reds star sooner than later

The football landscape is at an interesting time right now. You have the two greatest players of all time, Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, nearing the ends of their careers, Kylian Mbappe hitting his prime and you have teenagers like Lamine Yamal and Arda Guler shining at the Euros.

The wide age range from a 16-year old to the near 40-year old Ronaldo shows the future of the sport is in safe hands and that youngsters are being given chances like they never have before.

Liverpool as you know, are no strangers to letting young talent flourish. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Harvey Elliott, Conor Bradley and Ben Doak are just some recent examples of young lads being given the chance to shine.

Well, it appears we might have a new name to follow soon who could make a rapid rise, 17-year old Trey Nyoni.

Hitting the ground running in Red

In late August of 2023 Liverpool signed an unheralded 16-year old attacking midfielder from Leicester City. Trey Nyoni would waste late little time getting comfortable in his surroundings as he would quickly rise through the youth ranks.

He began the season playing for Liverpool U18's where he netted 3 goals and 1 assist in 5 matches before he quickly moved up to the next level.

The move to a massive club like Liverpool is not an easy one to make for established stars, let alone a young lad like Nyoni.

However, the young man showed no qualms about it and would make the move up to the U21 side where he would feature nearly 20 times while also scoring some nice goals and displaying some high-level skill on the ball.

This summer he looks to have carried over that momentum and could be setting himself up for several first team opportunities this coming season.

He can unlock any defense

As I mentioned above, Nyoni already has elite level dribbling skills and his progressive passing is something that should make Arne Slot take notice.

He has a calmness when on the ball as he is always looking for the key forward pass whereas a lot of players his age are still playing with their heads down. This puts him light-years ahead of some of his contemporaries.

He's obviously not on the level of a Yamal or Endrick at this point, but his ceiling is clearly very high. He needs to get a little stronger and that will come with time so he can handle the rigors of the Premier League.

His vision and football IQ though are two things that he can rely on until that happens and we have already seen those in action.

Where he might fit in the Slot system remains to be seen but he has the technical tools to make an impact from a variety of places.

The future could be now

While I don't expect Nyoni to suddenly explode onto the first team stage and play 30+ times, I would not be shocked at all if we saw him make somewhere between 9-15 appearances.

He has enough talent already to take those chances and make an impact for this team. He showed a glimpse of what we can expect during his cameo in Friday's opening US tour match against Real Betis when he came on for Curtis Jones.

His progressive passing gifts were on full display as he found his Liverpool teammates in several dangerous positions and he was always trying to move things forward.

I think he could do some pretty wonderful things as a super sub in the various competitions this season because of just this. He can unlock a tired defense that has been run ragged by the likes of Darwin Nunez, Mohamed Salah and Co.

Liverpool Football Club is no stranger to young phenoms bursting onto the scene to the betterment of all things Red and Trey Nyoni could be the next name on that ever-growing list.