With a man of the match award in one hand and his phone in the other, Lewis Koumas made a very important call before stopping to speak to the media at Anfield on Tuesday night. What it means to represent your boyhood club, and to shine for it, was apparent for all to see.
“That was my mum,” said the Liverpool forward, still beaming from the award Cody Gakpo handed to him after the 3-1 Carabao Cup third-round win over Tottenham. “She was here tonight with my nan, my grandad and my sister. They were all in the box. I rang them straight away to show them the trophy and they were buzzing.”
What it takes to impress Andoni Iraola and function effectively in the his front line was also apparent from Koumas’s performance against Spurs. The Liverpool head coach had aimed a pre-match dig at more decorated, expensive names when calling for better pressing and tenacity from his forwards in light of Saturday’s flat draw with Fulham. Koumas was not part of that conversation, but as he worked himself to a standstill against the Spurs defence, creating space and opportunities for others to exploit, it seemed the 20-year-old had taken Iraola’s comments to heart as well as on board.
“The energy he shows is contagious,” Iraola said. “I’m very happy for him. He does it in training every day. He is very clear what he needs to do, what the team needs.”
Koumas, who celebrates his 21st birthday on Saturday, the day before Liverpool travel to Bournemouth, Iraola’s former club, took the compliment in his humble, studious stride. “How I play is ultimately the Liverpool way,” he said. “We’ve always been a club where players have to give absolutely everything on the pitch. We’re bringing that back now and the crowd are loving it.
“A lot of it is about what I do off the ball. The gaffer has shown trust to me that I can carry out his plans in terms of how we want to play tactically. I was happy to do that for him. It gives me so much motivation the fact he’s putting me in for a game like this. I want to kick on now.”
Iraola placed trust in the Chester-born forward within weeks of his arrival this summer, informing Liverpool’s then sporting director, Richard Hughes, that he wanted Koumas in the first team squad and not sent out on loan again. Having impressed on Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the US, Koumas, the son of former Tranmere and West Brom playmaker Jason, has made his first appearances in the Premier League and Champions League as a substitute and now has a first man of the match award at senior level.
Could he have imagined that at the start of pre-season? “No, I would have woken up,” the Wales international says. “I would have thought I was dreaming. I’m just really happy and very grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given. You never know when your last time on the pitch for Liverpool is going to be. I just try to leave everything out there every time.”
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Koumas has been capped 12 times for Wales, but has had to bide his time to break through at club level. The forward, who can also operate on the wing, was given his first Liverpool start by Jürgen Klopp more than two years ago and marked his full debut with a goal in a 3-0 FA Cup fifth round win over Southampton. He did not feature for his boyhood team again until Iraola arrived, spending the 2024-25 campaign on loan at Stoke, the first half of 2025-26 on loan to Birmingham and the remainder of that season on loan to Hull.
“I never showed a weak mentality about how the future would look for me at Liverpool,” said Koumas, who cites Michael Owen and Gareth Bale as childhood inspirations. “I always had the drive that I would get here.
“The reason for going out on loan was to prepare for this moment. A lot of hunger can be lost in the game with how things go. But coming through the pre-academy and right through the academy, my hunger has always been there. My hunger comes from representing Liverpool Football Club, wanting to give everything for the best club in the world.”
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