One-time Liverpool prospect Sheyi Ojo identified Roberto Firmino as a player who was always ‘perfect’ in training.
Ojo, who was tipped for the top when he was a teenager at Liverpool, spoke to The Athletic in a newly published interview about the path his career has gone down in recent years. The 27-year-old now finds himself playing for Slovenian side Maribor, but much of the interview understandably centered around his time at Liverpool and the expectations that surrounded him when he was a teenager.
The report says that Ojo suggested Firmino, who made his Liverpool debut in 2015-16 – the same year as Ojo, was the embodiment of Klopp’s ‘mentality monsters’.
“I learnt the level of consistency, even in training, the attention to detail,” Ojo added of the time he spent at Liverpool. “I remember my first training session with the first team, I was 15, and I remember the intensity of the pass, the movement in behind for an attacking player, all the little small things you wouldn’t think are a big deal but then at that level, every little detail counts. That’s the level at the biggest clubs, every day is like a game pretty much.”
Ojo also touched on the reason that he thinks he ultimately didn’t make it at Liverpool. The attacker made 11 appearances during the 2015-16 season, but a back injury sustained at the beginning of the 2016-17 campaign quelled his momentum and he would go on to make just two more appearances for the Reds’ first team before a series of loans and his eventual permanent departure two years ago.
“I was really upset, to be honest,” Ojo said. “It didn’t break me because I’m still here but at the time I remember feeling heartbroken because I knew really that was my opportunity to properly kick on. It was a back injury and I was out for about four months. Even to this day, I remember that exact feeling. It was a hard one to take.”
