Conor Bradley to Feature in Plans for Next Season

According to The Athletic, Liverpool FC will not be shopping for a right-back this summer and will instead put faith in Academy product Conor Bradley. The 19-year-old Northern Irish right-back has been on a season loan at Bolton Wanderers, where he has scored seven goals and assisted six in 49 appearances for the League One outfit. He was involved as Bolton picked up the Papa John’s Trophy while helping the team push for promotion to the Championship.

Manager Jürgen Klopp briefly touched on the subject of Bradley in the pre-game presser for the West Ham game:

“The plan at the moment is to bring him back and keep him, but we will see.”

“Bring him back, go in the pre-season and then enjoy the steps he made, then we will decide together what we are doing from that moment on.”

“Everybody speaks positively about him.”

“I think one and a half years ago only a few football nerds would have known about him and now everybody knows him. That’s cool and that’s the first step.”

“He is our boy, which I like a lot. A super mentality, which is extremely helpful, and all the rest will come - and we are all pretty sure about that. So, that’s it.

“Conor will be our player, but how it is in that age group, we have to see if it makes more sense for him going on loan after pre-season or not. We will decide that then and not now.”

This should make for an interesting pre-season storyline at the very least. The backup spot to Trent Alexander-Arnold was expected to be filled by summer signing Calvin Ramsay, but he has had an injury-filled debut season and only made two appearances for the Reds so far. That has led to Joe Gomez and James Milner filling in at right-back when Trent has stepped aside. It’ll be good for all to have some competition for that position, and hopefully, both Ramsay and Bradley can push their levels to greater heights.