Liverpool defeated Real Betis in pre-season and former Leicester City midfielder Trey Nyoni impressed.
Arne Slot saluted the performance of Trey Nyoni following Liverpool’s pre-season victory over Real Betis.
The Reds’ new head coach’s reign officially got under way with a 1-0 triumph over the Spanish outfit during the club’s tour of the USA. Dominik Szoboszlai netted the only goal of the game on 34 minutes in Pittsburgh.
With Slot already bereft of first-team players because of Euro 2024 and the Copa America, Liverpool were hit with a blow when Curtis Jones was forced off with an injury injury inside the half-hour mark. He was replaced by Nyoni, who delivered an eye-catching performance. The 17-year-old midfielder, signed from Leicester City last summer, played his part in the Reds’ opening goal and was excellent throughout his cameo before being substituted in the second period.
When speaking at his pre-match press conference, Slot had insisted that he would not be naming any youngsters who had impressed him since arriving in the Anfield hot seat. But he broke that rule and saluted Nyoni’s display.
Slot told LFCTV: “Someone else came in and he played quite well. I said yesterday that I’m not going to name any youngsters who have caught my eye but you could see he comes in after 30 minutes for Curtis and you would expect that I meant him.
“He did really well today. He just turned 17 and his body is young so I think he needs some time to get stronger and hopefully he will be a bit taller as well. He found a lot of players in between the lines and there was also a great small pass for Harvey. He did well, that’s a good thing because we know we have a lot of good players.”
Slot then told reporters after the game: “I think he did really well today but it was only an hour. Like I said, he did well. He was one of the reasons why we scored the goal, because he turned really quickly and [played] a spot-on pass in between the lines. And he was also involved in the biggest chance in the second half. So he did well.
“But he’s just turned 17 and his body has to grow, and we are really careful with him. So he doesn’t join every session and sometimes he goes out a bit earlier because he only turned 17 and you can see his quality but you can also see his body still needs some time to grow to play at Premier League level. But he showed some interesting things today.”
Goalscorer Szoboszlai also hailed the efforts of Nyoni. He added: “I like him a lot, he is a really offensive player. I just said on the bench to [Jarell] Quansah, you can’t even foul him because of his movements and stuff like this. Everybody saw in the second half, Nat [Phillips] was a centre-back but otherwise everybody was young and almost none of them were 20. But they still did a good job, didn’t concede a goal and had chances. So yeah, a good future.”
