Pretty clear he'll start.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/brendan-rodgers-set-trust-teenage-9806708Jordon Ibe is used to having responsibility thrust upon him at the Britannia Stadium.
The last time Liverpool were there, it was the youngster who was shoved in front of the cameras to explain away the club’s heaviest competitive defeat for 53 years.
And this despite the fact that he had entered the game only at half time, by which time his side were already 5-0 down.
Even at the time, it appeared a shocking dereliction of duty from the Reds’ senior players. How did they allow 19-year-old to face up to the inquisition like that. Kolo Toure, another substitute, was the only other player who spoke to the media that day.
For Ibe, however, it may prove to be a useful experience. On Sunday, he looks set to be put under the microscope again – this time on the field.
It looks increasingly likely that the winger will be given the nod to start Liverpool’s opening Premier League game of the season, as Brendan Rodgers prepares to put his trust in youth. Ibe is expected to be joined in the team by 18-year-old Joe Gomez, reward for the defender’s stellar showings in pre-season.
It represents a significant show of faith from the Reds boss, who has always spoke of his desire to give young players chances, but who has simultaneously been working hard to add “proven” quality to his squad over the summer.
Should Ibe and Gomez start at Stoke, it will mean Alberto Moreno (Ł12m) and Lazar Markovic (Ł20m) will miss out.
And while that means questions could legitimately be asked of the club’s recruitment policy, for Rodgers it is a return to the kind of meritocracy which marked his first two seasons on Merseyside. If you’re good enough, you’re most certainly old enough.
It is less than three years since Rodgers marked his first home league game as Liverpool boss by handing a maiden Premier League start to 17-year-old Raheem Sterling. Later that season, he would make Jerome Sinclair the youngest player in the club’s history, and go to Goodison Park with a team containing three teenagers – Andre Wisdom and Suso joining Sterling in the line-up.
Times have changed since then, of course. Liverpool’s squad is significantly deeper now than it was then, for starters.
But the stakes are also higher. Rodgers’ reputation, so damaged at the back end of last season, is on the line, and his apparent willingness to throw two teenagers into such a vital game speaks volumes for how highly he rates both.
Ibe, of course, furthered his claims during the second half of last season with a string of effervescent displays on the right flank, and during pre-season it was noticeable how much of Liverpool’s play went through him.
The former Wycombe man, clearly, is destined for big, big things. He has speed, he has strength and he has skill. He also possesses a calm, unflappable nature, and the ability to strike the ball with either foot. At 19, his is a rare talent.
So too Gomez’s. Signed after an excellent debut campaign with Charlton in the Championship, he has wasted no time in showing Rodgers and his coaching staff what he is all about. Sean O’Driscoll, Liverpool’s assistant manager, knows him well form his time as England U17 coach, and Rodgers too has been impressed by Gomez’s composure, physicality and ball-playing ability.
So much so, in fact, that he had no qualms about sending Wisdom, a more experienced player, out on loan to Norwich, and will have no worries about asking Gomez to play, even out of position at left back, at one of the Premier League’s more testing away grounds.
Of course the key thing for a young player is to take chances as and when they arrive.
We will see on Sunday what Ibe and Gomez are made of, and just how well-placed Rodgers’ faith is in his young prodigies.
