Speaking on the Pitch Side Podcast, Joe Gomez has been discussing his early days as a Liverpool player and how spellbound he was by Philippe Coutinho in training.
The centre-back arrived at Anfield from Charlton Athletic back in 2015 and it’s fair to say he was making a massive step up at the time.
Going from Charlton to Liverpool represents a huge gulf in class, and according to Gomez, he was overawed by many of the Liverpool players at the time.
Gomez says that the one player who stood out most to him was Coutinho, stating that the Aston Villa ace was something different to anything he’d ever seen before.
Gomez impressed by Coutinho
The Liverpool ace discussed how Coutinho impressed him.
“You’ve spoken about a surprise factor. Is there anyone at Liverpool who has taken you by surprise with their attributes?” Gomez was asked.
“When I joined it was everyone. The noticeable one, the standout was Phil. Watching Coutinho train I was like ‘this is different, this is world level.’ A top, top player,” Gomez said.
Different level
Imagine going from playing bottom-end Championship football to training with a prime Philippe Coutinho, it must’ve been like playing a different sport for Gomez at times.
With all due respect to Charlton Athletic, the Addicks haven’t seen a player like Coutinho since before Gomez was born, so we can imagine just how much of a culture shock those early training sessions would have been.
However, it didn’t take long for Gomez to acclimatise and he’s since gone on to become and England international, Premier League winning defender.
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