You can certainly sense from the last few weeks in the opening games of pre season the Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool squad is looking well, variety of experience and youth, world class talents and promising individuals, team players, quality players, brimming with confidence and filled with excitement for a season which sees the return of Champions League football to Merseyside.
There are the more experienced younger players in the likes of Raheem Sterling, Jon Flanagan, Jordon Ibe, Suso and Martin Kelly, and there are the likes of Jordan Rossiter, Cameron Branagan, Harry Wilson and Adam Phillips who are showing more and more promise every day, but still aren’t quite ready. But then there are the players such as Joao Carlos Teixeira, Jack Robinson, and particularly Northern Irishman Ryan McLaughlin, who are still waiting for a chance to break into the first team after a few recent years with no such luck. With a lot of games in the forthcoming campaign and the Reds hoping to achieve success in all of the Premier League, Capital One Cup, F.A Cup and Champions League, is this finally a year where chances will arise for players like our young full back?
Having watched Ryan McLaughlin for a number of years in the reserve, U18 and U21 squads, you can see his attributes clearly. He's a full back willing to work hard defensively with great stamina and pace/accelaration over a short distance. He can cross and pass assertively. He is intelligent and disciplined on the football field. And with Jon Flanagan showing this year that it is possible, McLaughlin can certainly succeed in a Liverpool shirt for the first team, in my eyes anyway. And with full back being a "cause for concern" at the minute, despite having Jose Enrique and Glen Johnson in our ranks, and Javier Manquillo and Alberto Moreno negotiating with the club and hopefully on their way, maybe there really is a gap for the Northern Irishman to showcase his potential and the talent he could offer to a side looking to defy the odds, succeed domestically and in Europe like nobody is expecting and replicate the phenomenal season they had last year, even without Luis Suarez.
It can happen, as Sterling, Flanagan have proved and Ibe is proving currently, and McLaughlin certainly is admired by the club, as he has been around for a number of years now, he loves the club and the city, and he improves with every passing game. I for one hope he is given an appearance, and you can't help but think something good will happen to him soon.
