Lewis Koumas Shines in Liverpool's Carabao Cup Victory
Lewis Koumas stepped out of the Anfield tunnel with a man of the match award in one hand and his phone in the other. Before the cameras, before the questions, there was only one call that mattered.
“That was my mum,” the Liverpool forward said, still glowing from the 3-1 Carabao Cup third-round win over Tottenham and the trophy Cody Gakpo had just passed into his hands. “She was here tonight with my nan, my granddad and my sister. They were all in the box. I rang them straight away to show them the trophy and they were buzzing.”
On a night when a boyhood dream felt almost tangible, Koumas did far more than pose with silverware. He gave a live demonstration of exactly what Andoni Iraola demands from his forwards – and exactly what had been missing in Saturday’s flat draw with Fulham.
Iraola had sharpened the focus before kick-off, calling for greater pressing and bite from his front line, a pointed message in the direction of bigger names and bigger fees. Koumas was never mentioned. He didn’t need to be. He answered on the pitch instead.
For 90 relentless minutes he harried, chased and dragged Roberto De Zerbi’s defence into places they didn’t want to go, working himself to a standstill and creating lanes and chaos for others to exploit. Every sprint, every press, felt like a direct reply to his manager’s challenge.
“The energy he shows is contagious,” Iraola said afterwards. “I’m very happy for him. He does it in training every day. He is very clear what he needs to do, what the team needs.”
Koumas turns 21 on Saturday, on the eve of Liverpool’s trip to Iraola’s former club Bournemouth. He took the praise the way he plays – without fuss, without ego, with a clear sense of what the shirt demands.
“I think how I play is ultimately the Liverpool way,” he said. “We’ve always been a club where players have to give absolutely everything on the pitch. We’re bringing that back now and the crowd are loving it.
“A lot of it is about what I do off the ball. The gaffer has shown trust to me that I can carry out his plans in terms of how we want to play tactically. I was happy to do that for him. It gives me so much motivation the fact he’s putting me in for a game like this. I want to kick on now.”
That trust arrived quickly. Within weeks of taking over in the summer, Iraola told then sporting director Richard Hughes he wanted Koumas in his first-team squad, not disappearing on another loan. The decision followed an impressive pre-season tour of the US and has already reshaped the forward’s Liverpool story.
The Chester-born Wales international, son of former Tranmere and West Bromwich Albion playmaker Jason Koumas, has ticked off Premier League and Champions League debuts from the bench this season. Now he has a first senior man of the match award to add to the collection.
Could he have pictured any of this when he reported back for pre-season?
“No, I would have woken up!” he laughed. “I would have thought I was dreaming. It’s crazy. But I’m just really happy and very grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given. You never know when your last time on the pitch for Liverpool is going to be. I just try to leave everything out there every time.”
That attitude has been forged the hard way. Koumas has 12 Wales caps but his club career has demanded patience and resilience. Jürgen Klopp handed him his first Liverpool start more than two years ago and he marked it with a goal in a 3-0 FA Cup fifth-round win over Southampton. Then the door closed again.
He would not play for his boyhood club’s first team for more than two years, instead taking the long road through the Championship: Stoke for the 2024-25 season, Birmingham for the first half of 2025-26, Hull for the second. Three clubs, one purpose.
“I never showed a weak mentality about how the future would look for me at Liverpool,” he said. Michael Owen and Gareth Bale were his idols growing up, but the fuel has always come from closer to home. “I always had the drive that I would get here. The reason for going out on loan was to prepare for this moment.
“A lot of hunger can be lost in the game with how things go. But for me coming through the pre-academy and right through the academy, my hunger has always been there. My hunger comes from representing Liverpool Football Club, wanting to give everything for the best club in the world.”
On Wednesday night, as he held his phone up to the Anfield lights to show his family the trophy, that hunger looked anything but satisfied. It looked like the start of something he has spent his entire young life getting ready for.
