Worrying: Giant Rio Ngumoha concern surfaces for Liverpool | OneFootball

Liverpool are putting a lot of faith in Rio Ngumoha. Now a genuine worry has come up.

There's no question that Liverpool will put a lot of faith in Rio Ngumoha next season. There was calls for more minutes across most of last season, in fact, with Arne Slot waiting for quite some time before unleashing the youngster.

Though, the extent to which he was actually 'unleashed' is debatable. Ngumoha only played 560 Premier League minutes, starting just five matches.

A lot of that was because Slot didn't want to trust a teenager with that much responsibility. People can argue about that one for a long time but there was another reason for it: over exposure.

Liverpool were naturally cautious of running a teenager into the ground before he's even turned 18. It's something that can have a dramatically negative effect on a young player, either short-term or long-term.

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Now, Ngumoha almost certainly could have handled plenty more than 560 minutes and we do expect that number to rise quite some way in 2026/27. But there's an issue - Liverpool aren't the only ones thinking that.

The Telegraph reports that Thomas Tuchel and England want to start including Ngumoha in their squads going forward. They're looking at him with a view to Euro 2028 after a very impressive spell training with the squad ahead of the World Cup.

That's a problem. Liverpool want to use Ngumoha more often but it sounds as though he won't be getting the international breaks off to recover.

Quite the opposite, in fact - things may actually increase in intensity over those 'breaks'. That is an incredible amount to ask of a teenage player and we wonder if it affects how Liverpool manage Ngumoha next season.

They can't really control England wanting to call him up. All they can control is how much he plays with them and that may mean reducing his minutes around international breaks.

It's just all a genuine worry now. There's a massive risk of overexposure on Ngumoha and it's one that turns what should be an incredibly exciting time into one of trepidation.