Where are they now? Liverpool’s 9 wonderkids from Football Manager 2016 | OneFootball

It was an exciting time to be a Liverpool fan when Football Manager was released a decade ago, in November 2015.

Jurgen Klopp had only been in the job for a few weeks, promising a glorious future ahead. There were some promising youngsters on the Reds’ books back then, but how many of them reached their potential?

We’ve dug back through the FMScout archives, picked out Liverpool’s nine wonderkids from Football Manager 16 and checked in on where they’re at 10 years later.

Joe Gomez

Spoiler alert: Gomez is the only player on this list still at Anfield all these years later.

The versatile defender had just been signed from Charlton that summer and would soon establish himself as a key player under Klopp.

Injuries have denied him a place as a Liverpool mainstay, but he was fit enough to play a prominent role in the 2019-20 campaign, forming a rock-solid partnership with Virgil van Dijk as the club claimed their first title in 30 years.

Nowadays he remains a useful squad option under Arne Slot, but there’s a reticence to call upon him too frequently, perhaps understandably given his injury woes and the club’s relative lack of depth in defence.

Jordan Rossiter

Once a fresh-faced cherub at Melwood, Rossiter is now at League of Ireland outfit Waterford and surely one of the oldest-looking 28-year-olds you’ll find anywhere.

The midfielder was named Liverpool Academy Player of the Season back in 2013–14, but he never made it beyond the fringes of the first team, making one solitary Premier League appearance for his boyhood club.

A move to Rangers failed to kickstart his career, not even after Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard followed him to Ibrox, and in subsequent years he flitted about the lower reaches of the English pyramid – Bury, Fleetwood, Bristol Rovers, Shrewsbury and Oldham.

Sheyi Ojo

Former England youth international Ojo was sent out on seven different loan stints – among them Reims, Rangers and Wolves – before he was released by his parent club in the summer of 2022.

Cardiff City then picked him up but he struggled to pull up any trees and was once again a free agent two years later.

He’s currently plying his trade for Maribor, who finished runners-up to Olimpija Ljubljana in the Slovenian PrvaLiga in his debut season.

Harry Wilson

Another perennial loanee who never made it beyond the periphery of Klopp’s Liverpool, Wilson made his international debut for Wales back in 2013(!), long before he established himself as a fixture of the club game.

As they so often did with their talented youngsters during the Michael Edwards era, Liverpool cashed in on Wilson, selling him to Fulham for a £12million fee in the summer of 2021.

The midfielder shone in the Championship as Marco Silva’s Cottagers walked promotion and has since established himself as a solid top-flight operator with over a hundred Premier League appearances under his belt.

Deadline day almost saw Wilson join his Welsh team-mates Daniel James and Joe Rodon at Leeds, but Fulham pulled the plug on the deal. He remains a dependable player at Craven Cottage.

Bobby Adekanye

Nigerian-born Netherlands youth international Adekanye developed his skills as a teenager in the distinguished academies of Ajax, Barcelona and PSV before joining Liverpool’s youth ranks.

The only player on this list who never made a senior appearance for the Reds, the forward joined Lazio in 2019. He made 11 Serie A appearances for the Biancocelesti before a series of loans away.

Nowadays, he finds himself turning out for Turkish second-tier outfit Manisa.

Ryan Kent

It was the archetypal youth teamer’s early career path for Kent.

One FA Cup appearance (a 2-2 draw with Exeter), five loans away, the last of which earned him a permanent move away (Rangers).

The winger played a starring role under Gerrard as Rangers won the Scottish Premiership and went unbeaten in 2020-21, and the following year started in their Europa League final defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt.

It was around that time that Kent was pretty much a daily fixture of the transfer gossip columns, but a move south of the border never materialised. A move to Fenerbahce proved a short-lived disaster and he’s now turning out for MLS side Seattle Sounders.

Jordon Ibe

You might’ve seen Ibe mocked in those awful engagement-bait X accounts that infiltrate your ‘for you’ timeline.

Ibe never became an adequate replacement for Raheem Sterling, as some of the more overexcited members of Liverpool’s fanbase hoped for, while it proved excellent business to sell him to Bournemouth for £15million.

Indeed, the winger never justified the Cherries shelling out a club-record fee, but he’s spokenly refreshingly honestly about his off-pitch mental health struggles and is worthy of respect.

After a half decade of moving about the lower reaches of the English pyramid, Ibe has recently signed a two-year deal with Bulgarian top-flight side Lokomotiv Sofia.

He’s still earning a living as a professional footballer, which in our book is still doing a damn sight better than the admins of awful banter pages who use his name as a punchline.

Jerome Sinclair

Not to get too meta, but Planet Football has been going for eight years. In that time, we must’ve written about well over a thousand footballers in our ‘where are they now?’ pieces.

We’re not sure we can think of a better entry than Sinclair, once Liverpool’s youngest-ever debutant, who retired in 2021 and now earns his living as the owner of a branch of fried chicken chain Morley’s.

Sinclair has recently returned to football, in a manner of speaking, turning out for VZNFC in the Baller League.

Divock Origi

A man who needs no introduction.

Responsible for a ridiculous amount of iconic moments relative to his gametime, including a goal in a Champions League final victory, Origi was given a well-earned hero’s farewell when his contract expired in 2022.

It’s safe to say he doesn’t quite enjoy the same cult hero status in Milan.

He’s collecting his wages at the San Siro, as is his right, but he’s been demoted to the Rossoneri’s youth reserves and hasn’t played at any meaningful level since his forgettable loan to Nottingham Forest in 2023-24.