Prematch | Everton vs Liverpool | PL Matchday 33 | Sunday 19/04/2026 - 14:00 BST

See the way I said I would normally agree?
That bit is an important part of my answer

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I don’t think we should restrain from starting Ngumoha if we judge it’s the way to go. And I don’t think it will be a factor for the coaching staff either. But I don’t think he will start anyway.

I don’t think that’s what happened.

I see both sides of it with Rio for is one. He is well worth a start, as he is such a threat. And at his age he won’t do the 90 so I would expect him to tire and come off.

On the other hand, if the decision is to bring him into the game, it needs to be for meaningful minutes, say on the hour mark, so he can get to grips with the intensity and then have time to do something.

What would be wrong would be to not use him at all, or to give him 2 minutes to change the outcome.

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Wish this guy was playing up front for us tomorrow…

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I am at a losss, why a 17 year old can’t do 90 minutes

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I’m at a loss as to why we’re pinning our hopes on a 17 year old lad

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In case he has to head the ball more than once in a week?

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I don’t think he has built up the first team stamina yet, so may be susceptible to injury a bit more, later on in the game. But I’ll leave that to the sports scientists, I’m just a layman, but I think the conventional wisdom is you ease them in.

Mind you, he is ready for a lot more action than we have been seeing, and I can’t wait to see what he becomes.

So does Rio start for 60mins..or does he come on at the 2nd half…it’s either or…story of our season…

Because he has quality and age shouldn’t matter

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the point i’m trying make is…

attacking wise…

we have Gapko a Dutch International who cost around £40M
Salah, an Egyptian international who also 1 of our club record scorers,
Wirz a German International who cost over £100M
Szob, Hungarian Captain who cost around £60M
Macca, World cup winner with Argentina who cost around £45M
(I wont include Isak as he’s coming back from injury)

but here we are pinning our hopes of winning on a 17 year old lad playing

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Doesn’t have to be all of our hopes, he doesn’t have to be our saviour, but he can easily merit starting a certain game regardless of everything about him compared to others.

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Can’t wait to see if we can overperform our xG.

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But we aren’t, we are playing a player in his preferred position, who is the best option for us in that position and to help the team get a result.

Calling it now - if we get beaten tomorrow we will finish 7th at best. A draw and no injuries wouldn’t even be a bad result.

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But your questioning why he cant play the full 90 mins…

Do we really need the 17 year old lad that badly?

After today a draw would actually be fine, we can only probably take over Villa anyhow.

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My question still stands why can’t a 17 year old play 90 minutes?

i think physically he obviously can

i dont think it will either make or break his career, in that eventually hell play in these situations.

i have feet in both camps to be honest.

if hes good enough (he is) then he should play, if he gets a schooling in the …ahem…finer arts… then thats something he was always going to have to overcome…

then the other side…fuck that…hes just started his career and this aint gonna be pretty, doing stepovers in a dogfight is bound to end up with a bruise…

so i suppose it all comes down to how crucial the match is to the football club (not Slot, not Rio, not the playing staff, but the football club)

on one hand we keep building for tomorrow, blood a youngster in a fixture thats really, in the scheme of things for a club where pots, not fourth places are the aim, is not that important, and get his initiation ‘over and done with’…

on the other hand, if we miss on CL next season is it a disaster.

FWIW, i think Gakpo, despite his issues, is more suitable for this particular game of football…but then he probably starts through the middle…

itll be interesting

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