His name is Rio, and the national press are taking notice

There were three £100m-plus signings on the bench at Anfield on Tuesday night, and yet the story walked out of the tunnel in an 18-year-old's boots. Rio Ngumoha set up goals for Ronald Araujo and Alexis Mac Allister as Liverpool came from 2-0 down to beat Villarreal 4-3 in the Champions League, keeping their perfect record in the competition intact. It was a rollercoaster of an evening, and when it was over, the national media were in broad agreement about who had made the difference.

Paul Joyce in The Times captured the moment neatly, writing that Ngumoha "is proving one of the club's best investments in recent times and whose name echoed around Anfield with the mood having seesawed from one of despair to elation thanks to his work." Andy Hunter in The Guardian went further, calling the teenager "electric, the difference maker" and noting that he was delivering all of this from the right wing, a position he is still adapting to. The fact that Ngumoha is flourishing outside his natural role is the detail that keeps cropping up, and it is not a small thing.

A teenager who doesn't yet have 40 senior appearances

Richard Jolly in The Independent zeroed in on the physical side of Ngumoha's game, which is not always the first thing you associate with teenage wingers finding their way. "Sometimes teenage talents have technique before they have the physique," he wrote, "but it was notable how much speed and power Ngumoha showed on the burst to set up Mac Allister's second goal." At 18, with pace, power and the ability to operate on both flanks, the ceiling here is genuinely difficult to measure.

Sam Wallace in The Telegraph was equally effusive, describing a player who "plunged the opposition into fearful indecision" and concluding that Ngumoha "looks like one of the best young players in Europe." Wallace also noted that this was a young man yet to reach 40 senior appearances, which puts everything in a rather startling perspective. Liverpool came close to throwing it away late on, and Wallace did not shy away from that, but even a nervy finish could not diminish what the teenager had produced across the 90 minutes.

Wirtz firing back at his critics from the bench

The Ngumoha conversation rather dominated the post-match coverage, but there was a secondary story worth telling. Florian Wirtz, who had endured a difficult afternoon against Manchester City the previous week, came off the bench and made an impact, contributing a goal from Cody Gakpo's cut-back. The Liverpool Echo's Paul Gorst noted that the German had been "largely anonymous" against City, but pointed to a more encouraging pattern emerging, with two assists and a goal across six days of football.

Gorst also made the point that Andoni Iraola had argued on Monday that Wirtz is "overly scrutinised and discussed too often," and performances like this one will only help settle that conversation. A player of Wirtz's quality taking time to find his rhythm under a new manager is not unusual, and the signs are that something is beginning to click. Whether he holds his place in the starting eleven or continues to build influence from the bench, the direction of travel looks considerably more promising than it did after the City defeat.

A perfect Champions League record and a teenager writing his name in lights

Liverpool's 100% start to their Champions League campaign is the hard fact that sits underneath all the noise, and it is a foundation worth acknowledging. Coming from 2-0 down to win 4-3 is not the tidiest of evenings, but it speaks to a resilience and a depth of quality in this squad that should excite anyone who follows the club. The question now is whether Ngumoha keeps that starting berth when the bigger names return fully fit, because on the evidence of Tuesday night, he is making that decision extremely difficult for his manager.