Lewis Koumas waited 907 days for a second Liverpool appearance. His third should come sooner

There were 907 days between Lewis Koumas’ first senior appearance for Liverpool and his second. But for the 20-year-old, it was worth the wait.

“This is the peak,” Koumas told Liverpoolfc.com, the club’s official website “It’s quite emotional, to be honest.”

Two and a half years ago, and just three days after Koumas, then aged 18, had watched from the bench at Wembley as some of his academy team-mates played their part in Liverpool’s 1-0 Carabao Cup final triumph over Chelsea, he had his own chance to make a mark in a fifth-round FA Cup tie at home to Southampton in February 2024.

Named in the starting XI on the left of the front three, he scored the opening goal of a 3-0 victory after 44 minutes — a clever strike from the edge of the box that nestled into the corner. He became the fourth-youngest player in the club’s history to score on his debut.

Fast forward to St James’ Park in Newcastle this past Sunday, and the desire to make an impact and help his team win matches has not changed.

Koumas embracing manager Jurgen Klopp after his Liverpool debut in 2024 (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

With Liverpool 2-1 down and searching for an equaliser, Andoni Iraola introduced the Welsh youngster with 13 minutes remaining. The instructions were simple: add energy, make runs in behind and try to make something happen.

Koumas may not have played a part in the winning of the penalty which led to the added-time equaliser and an away point, but he provided more of the drive and intensity that underpinned his pre-season. It is why there is a strong chance he remains a Liverpool player beyond the close of the transfer window next Tuesday night.

Pre-season offered youngsters an opportunity to stake a claim for starts, with Iraola new to the job and several senior players away on their post-World Cup breaks. Koumas returned after his summer holiday the week before the first-team players not involved in the World Cup did, alongside the rest of the under-21 squad.

Iraola was already present at the training ground and kept watch. Koumas continued to make an impression on his new boss when he took part in first-team training the following week. His fitness levels stood out, as did his application and work rate.

That translated into his performances on the pitch. Koumas scored the final goal in the 4-2 defeat of Sunderland in Nashville, and backed that up with another positive showing in the win against Wrexham in New York.

He was part of the second-half collapse against Leeds in the final fixture of the trip in Chicago, but the belief and trust Iraola has in him was evident when he was selected as part of a strong starting XI in the friendly against Monaco at Anfield a week later, when his performance contained everything but a goal.

Koumas’ versatility should also be a huge positive for Iraola and his coaching staff: he played in all of the front-four positions at varying points through pre-season, and came on as the No 10 against Newcastle.

He is, as many will be aware, the son of Jason Koumas, a talented forward who began his career in Liverpool’s academy before making over 300 league starts for Tranmere Rovers, West Bromwich Albion, Cardiff City and Wigan Athletic, as well as playing 34 times for Wales.

The now 20-year-old left Merseyside neighbours Tranmere’s academy to join Liverpool as an under-11. They had to fend off interest from Everton, Manchester United and others.

Koumas grew up watching the team he supports alongside his father — who the youngster said in an interview with Sky Sports in 2025 wasn’t too involved in the early stages of his career as he wanted him to “just have fun as a kid and make sure I was enjoying it” — as well as playing for them at youth levels. He has leaned on him for advice, given the career he had.

Lewis Koumas’ father Jason (right) playing for Tranmere against former club Liverpool in 2001 (Clive Brunskill/Allsport via Getty Images)

Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com after the weekend’s draw with Newcastle, Koumas credited his mother for the sacrifices she made, especially during the early days of his footballing career.

“It just takes me back to the very first moments, where it was my mum sacrificing absolutely everything to get me to any session I could be at,” Koumas said.

“I remember being at Crewe, being at Tranmere, and my mum was just doing everything. So ultimately, it’s her to thank for being able to put myself out there, and now we’ve reached this stage. It’s just a happy family moment, and I’m just really happy she could see it.”

Koumas progressed through the younger age groups at Liverpool, playing predominantly as an attacking midfielder.

Ahead of his first full season with the under-18s, as a 16-year-old, their head coach Marc Bridge-Wilkinson deployed him as a striker in the final two pre-season games because of a lack of alternatives. The experiment continued into the first game of that campaign proper, and Koumas scored four goals in a 6-2 win against Middlesbrough.

However, a season that started so positively was interrupted by an injury which kept him out for over three months. When he returned, he ended the campaign in sparkling form once more. Five goals and two assists in the final seven matches of the Under-18 Premier League meant he only failed to score or assist in two of his 13 league appearances.

After a handful of training sessions with the first team in the 2023-24 pre-season, he was named in a 32-man group which travelled to Germany for a training camp.

It was another impressive campaign for the now 12-time Wales international as he scored 16 goals and recorded six assists in 27 appearances across a variety of competitions at youth level.

The reward was a first-team debut against Southampton in the FA Cup, and at the end of the campaign, a first senior call-up for Wales. He made his debut off the bench in a friendly away to Gibraltar in June 2024.

There was plenty of interest in taking Koumas on loan that summer, with regular first-team football key to the next stages of his development. Championship side Stoke City stood out. There was an impressive pitch from sporting director Jonathan Walters, who had done his research on Koumas.

It proved far from the ideal environment for a young player experiencing their first loan, however, with manager Steven Schumacher sacked after only five league games and replaced with Narcis Pelach.

That can sometimes push loan players out to the fringes as the new head coach assesses the squad he’s inherited, but Koumas adapted to Pelach’s more possession-based approach quickly and became a fan favourite.

He hit the headlines for an acrobatic goal against Bristol City in the October, but it was his all-round game that impressed the coaching staff. Work was done on timing runs in behind defences, and he was able to integrate into the dressing room and was part of a group of players who stayed in Stoke on a Friday evening before home games the following afternoon and went out for a meal together.

Koumas scoring for Stoke against Bristol City in October 2024 (Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)

Koumas had another manager to impress when Mark Robins was appointed on January 1, replacing the short-lived Pelach, who had been dismissed five days earlier. He was still playing regularly, but he did not start as many games in the second half of the season. Still, he finished with 49 appearances (starting 31) and almost 3,000 minutes of game time (the equivalent of almost 32 full matches) in all competitions, six goals and three assists.

Last season was an opportunity to build on that, and he joined promoted Birmingham City, again in the Championship, late in the summer. Koumas started three of the first four league games after his arrival — he was substituted after 44 minutes in the third one due to team-mate Jack Robinson’s red card — but would be in the XI for only one of the next 18.

Manager Chris Davies did use him regularly from the bench in that time, but entering January, sources with knowledge of the situation, speaking under the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, told The Athletic that discussions began to take place about his future. Ironically, he started the final three games of his stay, scoring in a 3-2 win against title-bound Coventry City, before what was initially a season-long loan got cut short.

Several Championship clubs were interested, but one of the surprise packages of the season, Hull City, proved to be his next destination. His impact was immediate.

Joining a side in the thick of play-offs contention, Koumas made his debut from the bench against Blackburn Rovers on January 31 and within four minutes had netted the winner.

Coming in and earning a starting spot in a team already doing well was always going to be difficult, and with the exception of a run of four starts in five games between the end of February and mid-March, he was again a regular contributor as a substitute. Hull secured a play-off place on the final day of the season and then promotion; as with that Carabao Cup final against Chelsea two years earlier, Koumas was an unused replacement in a 1-0 Wembley win, this time over Middlesbrough.

All three loans have taught him plenty, and he is using the experience gained to make his mark in a Liverpool shirt.

He will be hoping the time between his second and third appearances is nowhere near as long as the wait to play again after his debut.