Williams and Wilson Join Liverpool Training Camp

The last season saw several younger players taking centre stage after a slew of injuries left Klopp with very few options. Now, with everyone back at full strength, it looks like youth players will be fighting to become regular members of Klopp’s side even when we don’t cycle through 50 million defensive pairings in a single season.

For Neco Williams and Harry Wilson that begins now that both players have joined the other 34 Liverpool players currently in Salzburg, Austria for pre-season training camp. Liverpool will kick-off their pre-season friendlies on Tuesday with two 30 minute mini-games against FC Wacker Innsbruck and VfV Stuttgart before taking on FSV Mainz and Hertha BSC later in the month.

Whether or not a decent showing during pre-season will be enough to keep Wilson at Anfield remains to be seen. The 24-year-old Welsh international had an excellent season with Cardiff City in the Championship and is currently valued by the club at £13m. Whether or not that valuation will be met (Benfica made an official approach earlier this summer but did not match the amount that Liverpool are asking for) is still to be seen.

And while Liverpool aren’t particularly interested in seeing Williams leave, the Echo seems to believe that the 20-year-old will be pushing for a transfer in search of more regular playing time now that Trent Alexander-Arnold has returned to full fitness. The club has placed a price tag of £10m on the defender.

It goes without saying that the very least Liverpool need to do is to maintain the current depth they have. Even with Joe Gomez providing backup for Alexander-Arnold, having someone like Neco Williams on rotation is the most sensible course of action here.