If Jonathan Woodgate’s infamous Real Madrid bow belongs at one end – with Wayne Rooney’s Champions League hat-trick against Fenerbahce at the other – then Liam Millar’s sparkling Preston North End debut certainly falls far closer to the latter than the former on the scale of first-team debuts.
The one-time Liverpool youngster, who spent five years at Anfield before joining Basel in 2021, marked his return to English football in some style as the Championship pacesetters maintained their place a the top of the table with a 2-1 win over Plymouth Argyle on Saturday afternoon.
Not content with setting up Duane Holme’s opener within seconds of the kick off, Liam Millar then opened his own account on the 25th minute; making pretzels out of the Plymouth backline before cooly slotting into the far corner.
Millar took to Instagram at full-time to reflect on a ‘dream debut’, and his remarkable impact is the latest in a season chock-full of success stories for Ryan Lowe’s surprise-packages.
Former Liverpool starlet Liam Millar shines at Preston
“When you get new players, that’s what you want them to do,” Lowe smiles, via the Lancashire Evening Post. “Perform, work their socks off and try to contribute. Liam Millar, we watched him in training this week and put him over on the left side.
“He dropped the shoulder, came inside and put it in the bottom corner. We knew he had that in him; bless him, he has got cramp all over his body so we’ll have to make sure he’s fine for Tuesday!
“(Millar was) different class.”
The 21-time Canada international is certainly no stranger to a fast start. He marked his debut for Liverpool’s U18s with a hat-trick against Blackburn Rovers back in 2016 after all.
And, while Millar might not have made the grade at a Liverpool side boasting some of the finest wide-forwards in world football, that devastating Preston bow provides a tantalising glimpse into the potential that once had Steven Gerrard puffing out his cheeks, relieved that he had hung up his boots a few years earlier.
“He’s got the turbo pace. He is an athlete, he doesn’t stop and he harries,” Gerrard, then Millar’s coach in the Liverpool academy, said in 2018.
“I would hate to play against him.”
The Plymouth defence would undoubtedly agree.
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