Danny Murphy hails Liverpool’s ‘chief instigator’ who’s now given Arne Slot ‘a little headache’

Danny Murphy said that one Liverpool player has now given Arne Slot ‘a little headache’ after his performance at Molineux tonight.

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The Reds avenged their Premier League defeat to Wolves three days ago by knocking them out of the FA Cup on Friday and securing their passage to the quarter-finals in four weeks’ time.

On just his fifth senior start for LFC, Rio Ngumoha showed exactly why there’s been such a clamour for him to be included in the first XI, tormenting the home side with his effervescent dribbling and his unfailing confidence to take on opponents with far more experience.

Murphy: Ngumoha has now given Slot a ‘headache’

Speaking after Liverpool’s win at Molineux, Murphy singled out the 17-year-old for praise and suggested that he might now have given Slot a selection dilemma to ponder for upcoming games.

The former Reds midfielder said on BBC One: “Rio Ngumoha plays with freedom and positivity, and he is impactful. The reality is, at 17, I do understand why he is used off the bench.

“In a big game against a resolute Wolves side to be the main man, the one who is kind of trying to make things happen, the chief instigator of all Liverpool’s big moves – he didn’t seem fazed by it. He has given the manager a little headache.”

Ngumoha was simply brilliant against Wolves

Hailed as ‘brilliant’ by James Pearce for his performance tonight, Ngumoha vindicated all of those who’ve been imploring Slot to hand him a starting berth, with the teenager being the one shining light in a tepid first half at Molineux.

The youngster was handed a 9/10 rating by the Liverpool Echo for his display against Wolves, a ringing endorsement of how he performed against much more established opponents, and his head coach described him after the match as a ‘special’ talent (BBC Sport).

As seen in the table below (citing figures from Sofascore), the 17-year-old posted some highly impressive numbers to quantify just how brilliantly he played.

The clamour for Ngumoha to start against Galatasaray on Tuesday will only grow after his exploits tonight, but we doubt that Slot would throw him in from the first whistle in a Champions League knockout tie amid an infamously hostile atmosphere in Istanbul.

That said, we suspect the youngster wouldn’t find it intimidating at all. If anything, he’d probably embrace such a challenge and view it as a huge opportunity to make himself even harder to omit from the starting XI.

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