Liverpool’s Kids Shine: Frimpong and Endo Left Behind
Liverpool are into the fourth round of the EFL Cup. The scoreboard says job done after a win over Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield on Tuesday night. The story underneath it is far less comfortable for a couple of senior players.
Andoni Iraola ripped up his weekend team sheet, making 10 changes from the side that drew with Fulham. This was classic cup territory: a night for auditions, for fringe players and academy hopefuls to make a noise in front of the Kop.
They did. Just not the ones who most needed it.
Frimpong Exposed on a Brutal Night
Trey Nyoni, James McConnell and Lewis Koumas all earned rare starts, thrown straight into the heat of Anfield under the lights. On the teamsheet with them, Jeremie Frimpong at right-back – a player signed to be a weapon, not a passenger.
Iraola’s football lives off aggressive full-backs. Frimpong arrived from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer of 2025 for £30m with a reputation for exactly that. Fast. Direct. Relentless. The kind of player you expect to rip up the flank.
He didn’t.
Going forward, the Netherlands international offered almost nothing of note. No real incision, no sustained threat. On the other side of the ball, Tottenham saw a glaring opportunity and went after it again and again.
Mathys Tel ran at him. Mohammed Kudus drifted into his zone. Omar Marmoush joined in. Frimpong struggled to contain any of them over his 90 minutes. Spurs clearly identified his side as the weak link and kept twisting the knife.
This isn’t a one-off concern. In a red shirt, Frimpong has yet to convince. Sections of the fanbase have already turned on him at points this season and last, frustrated by a player who was supposed to be part of the solution but too often looks like part of the problem.
Right now, the hierarchy at right-back is brutally clear. Ronald Araujo is Iraola’s first choice. Conor Bradley is on his way back from injury and expected to return to the mix soon. Frimpong, for all that transfer fee and hype, is fighting just to be trusted.
For a club still searching for someone who can come close to what Trent Alexander-Arnold gave them before his move to Real Madrid, it’s a worrying picture. At the moment, Frimpong is widely viewed as one of the weakest links in the squad. That kind of perception at Liverpool rarely ends well unless the player transforms his form – and fast.
Endo Frozen Out
If Frimpong had a rough night on the pitch, Wataru Endo had an even more damning one off it.
The 33-year-old midfielder could reasonably have expected to play some part against Spurs. A rotated cup tie at home, 10 changes to the starting XI, youngsters getting their shot – it had all the makings of a game where a seasoned professional at least gets minutes from the bench.
He didn’t get a second.
Endo has already been left out of Liverpool’s 25-man Champions League squad, alongside Federico Chiesa, with McConnell and Nyoni both named ahead of him. That decision alone underlined where he stands in Iraola’s thinking.
This match hammered it home.
Even with Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai starting on the bench, Iraola went with 22-year-old McConnell and 19-year-old Nyoni in midfield from the off. Endo, a £16m signing, watched it all unfold as an unused substitute again, just as he has in all four of Liverpool’s Premier League games so far this season.
It’s not as if the Spaniard hasn’t been asked about it. Speaking recently, Iraola was blunt about the competition Endo faces.
“The problem is, in front of him in his position, I have a lot of players," he said. "He’s competing against a lot of players because we are also giving minutes to Trey (Nyoni), Ryan (Gravenberch), Alexis (Mac Allister), Dom (Szoboszlai), players that I am selecting right now.
“But Wata is definitely a player that I like and for sure he will have his moments.”
Those are polite words. The reality is harsher. If you can’t get on the pitch in a game like this – heavy rotation, kids trusted, senior stars rested – when exactly are those “moments” supposed to come?
Endo showed in pre-season that he can fill in at centre-back, impressing against Como in that role. He hasn’t been used there since. He hasn’t been used anywhere.
His contract expires at the end of the season. With younger players leapfrogging him and no clear route to regular minutes, the logic is obvious: January looks like Liverpool’s last realistic chance to bring in a fee before he walks away for nothing.
Iraola’s selections tell their own story. He doesn’t fancy Endo as a key part of his midfield rotation. The most sensible outcome for all involved now seems to be a clean break in a few months’ time.
Liverpool are through in the cup. The kids are catching the manager’s eye. But for Jeremie Frimpong and Wataru Endo, Anfield under the lights felt less like an opportunity and more like a warning about what comes next.
