Liverpool's Cup Win Highlights Frimpong and Endo's Futures
Liverpool are into the fourth round of the EFL Cup, but Tuesday night at Anfield told a story that stretched far beyond a routine home win over Tottenham Hotspur.
Andoni Iraola ripped up his weekend team sheet, making 10 changes from the side that drew with Fulham. This was supposed to be the classic cup audition: fringe players, academy prospects, reputations to be made or broken under the lights.
Some seized it. Others only deepened the doubts already swirling around them.
Frimpong Exposed on a Big Night
Trey Nyoni, James McConnell and Lewis Koumas were handed rare starts, their names called out with the kind of anticipation that always greets Liverpool’s next generation. Jeremie Frimpong’s inclusion at right-back, though, carried a very different edge.
Signed for £30m from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer of 2025, the Dutchman arrived as a modern full-back tailor-made for Iraola’s aggressive, front-foot style. The manager loves his full-backs to attack, to live high up the pitch, to stretch games.
Frimpong barely laid a glove on this one.
He offered little going forward, his runs predictable, his delivery tame. Spurs saw it early and went after him. Time and again, Liverpool’s right flank became a target as Mathys Tel, Mohammed Kudus and Omar Marmoush took turns isolating him, driving at him, testing both his positioning and his nerve.
Across 90 uncomfortable minutes, the verdict was brutal. Frimpong struggled to contain them, and the pattern never really changed.
This is not a one-off. Since pulling on a red shirt, he has failed to convince large sections of the fanbase, who have not been shy in their criticism across this season and the last. The contrast with Ronald Araujo, now clearly Iraola’s first-choice right-back, could hardly be sharper.
Conor Bradley’s return from injury looms on the horizon as well. When he is back in full flow, the competition tightens even further. Right now, Frimpong is not just behind Araujo; he is drifting into the territory no player wants to occupy at Liverpool: the man supporters identify as one of the squad’s weak links.
The wider issue is unavoidable. Since Trent Alexander-Arnold’s departure to Real Madrid, Liverpool have been searching for a right-back who can even approach his influence. Araujo has stepped up, Bradley is trusted, but no one has fully filled that void. On current evidence, Frimpong is not the answer.
For a £30m signing at a club with ambitions this high, “a lot of improving to do” is an understatement. He is playing for his Liverpool future already, and nights like this are not helping his case.
Endo Frozen Out
If Frimpong’s struggle was public, Wataru Endo’s setback was more quietly damning.
The 33-year-old midfielder did not start. He did not come off the bench. He did not play a single minute in a tie defined by rotation and opportunity.
This was a match tailor-made for those on the fringes. Iraola made 10 changes. Youngsters were trusted. Senior players rested. And yet Endo stayed rooted to the bench, just as he has in all four of Liverpool’s Premier League games this season.
The warning signs had already flashed bright last week when he was left out of Liverpool’s 25-man Champions League squad, alongside Federico Chiesa. McConnell and Nyoni were both selected ahead of him for Europe. That decision spoke loudly. Tuesday night underlined it.
Endo had shown versatility in pre-season, impressing in a centre-back role against Como. If there was ever a time to use that flexibility, it was a rotated home cup tie. Iraola still turned elsewhere.
McConnell, 22, and Nyoni, 19, both started in midfield. Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai, who began on the bench, were kept in reserve but remained firmly ahead of Endo in the pecking order. When Iraola looked to his options, he did not look to the Japan international.
The manager has been diplomatic in public. Speaking recently, he admitted Endo faces fierce competition in his position, listing Nyoni, Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Szoboszlai among those currently preferred. He also insisted he likes Endo as a player and believes he will have “his moments” this season.
Yet nights like this strip away the polite language. If you cannot get on the pitch when 10 changes are made, when youngsters are being blooded and senior men are being protected, when exactly are those “moments” supposed to arrive?
Endo’s contract expires at the end of the season. With so many players ahead of him and his Champions League exclusion already confirmed, Liverpool’s decision in January almost writes itself. This is their final chance to recoup a fee. The sporting logic and the financial logic are pointing in the same direction.
Iraola does not fancy him as a key part of his midfield rotation. That much is clear now. For a professional of Endo’s age and experience, lingering on the fringes is no solution.
Liverpool marched on in the cup, their youngsters earning applause and their manager getting the result he wanted. But behind the scoreline, Anfield also watched two careers bend in opposite directions: one high-priced full-back running out of excuses, and one veteran midfielder running out of time.
