Don't forget! Sensational attacker is coming to Liverpool | OneFootball

It's important to remind everyone that Liverpool have a special winger heading to the club very soon.

This year has marked a significant acceleration of the club's plans to pivot into the youth market spearheaded by Michael Edwards and Pedro Marques.

Liverpool are not only just signing the best players possible for the first-team but they have also made significant attempts to bolster the U21 squad with the best possible players at younger age-groups as well.

We saw this in January with the Reds completing two deals for players who caught the eye at the U17 World Cup.

Ifeanyi Ndukwe and Mor Talla Ndiaye both joined after impressing in the tournament held in Qatar. The latter has already joined the club from Amitie FC, an academy owned by Demba Ba and has shown a lot of promise with his first few performances for the U21s.

Ndiaye is a new kind of transfer for Liverpool. The type of transfer the club hasn't really in the past. He comes directly from Africa and he was able to join the club immediately due to the ESC player rules, which permit Liverpool to secure him a work-permit and allow him to play for the club's U21 side.

Before Brexit, and before the ESC exemption rule came into play, Liverpool couldn’t bring in young prospects like Ndiaye with this kind of ease.

Taiwo Awoniyi stands out as the only player the club signed directly from Africa during that time, but his path was far from straightforward.

He spent years out on multiple loan spells before finally becoming eligible to play in the Premier League.

By then, however, his journey had taken him to Nottingham Forest instead of Liverpool.

It’s worth considering how different his career might have been if he’d been able to step straight into Liverpool’s squad from the start and work alongside not only elite players in training but also Jurgen Klopp.

That’s the opportunity now in front of Ndiaye, a significant advantage for both him and the club. It also signals a broader shift, opening the door for Liverpool to recruit more directly from the African continent and across the world.

This has seen Liverpool agree a deal for Samuel Martinez to join the club from Colombia, and they were keen to sign Kennet Eichhorn from Germany as well.

Meanwhile, interest remains for Diego Pelembe and Daniel Banjaqui from Mozambique and Portugal respectively. But there is also another player who everyone might have forgotten about, who has agreed to join the club.

As we revealed exclusively on Anfield Watch last summer, Senegalese winger Sidy Barhama Ndiaye has also agreed to join Liverpool.

He was first identified by Liverpool scouts at the U17 Africa Cup of Nations in 2025. At the time, Ndiaye was playing above his age group and stood out with his quality.

And then he joined the club last summer and made a strong impression on the club’s coaches, too. During a two-week stay at Liverpool, he came off the bench twice for the U18s - registering an assist in one match and scoring in the other in two friendly matches.

Ndiaye won’t be able to officially join the club until he turns 18 on 31 December 2027, so it's next season that he's going to be arriving at Liverpool.

But Liverpool have already agreed in principle to sign him, in a deal similar to Kendry Páez’s pre-arranged move to Chelsea from Independiente del Valle. Or similarly to how Samuel Martinez was signed this summer but he won't join until next summer.

Under FIFA regulations, both Martinez and Ndiaye can spend up to eight weeks per year with the club before the transfer is finalised.

It's an intriguing aspect of the move that Liverpool will likely have two players named Ndiaye playing for them very soon.

Sidy's playing style has drawn comparisons to his compatriot Sadio Mane, and he’s widely considered one of Senegal’s most exciting young talents. He even said he looks up to the former Liverpool star as an idol talking to Eyeball Football recently.