Lewis Koumas Shines in Liverpool's Carabao Cup Win Over Spurs

Lewis Koumas stood in the bowels of Anfield with a man of the match award in one hand and his phone in the other, and he knew exactly who to call.

“That was my mum,” the Liverpool forward said, still grinning as Cody Gakpo’s prize glinted under the stadium lights after a 3-1 Carabao Cup third-round win over Tottenham. “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.”

The emotion was written all over him. This was a local lad shining for his boyhood club, and everyone in the ground could feel what it meant.

The perfect response to Iraola’s challenge

A few days earlier, Andoni Iraola had publicly demanded more from his forwards. He wanted aggression, pressing, a front line that hunted in packs after a flat draw with Fulham. The Liverpool head coach did not name names, but his message to the more established, expensive attackers was clear.

Koumas was never really part of that criticism. He played as if he had been.

Against Roberto De Zerbi’s Spurs, the 20-year-old ran himself into the turf. He pressed, he chased, he dragged defenders into places they did not want to go. His movement carved out lanes and pockets for teammates to exploit, the kind of unseen graft that transforms a system from theory into threat.

“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, the day before Liverpool head to Bournemouth, the club where Iraola first made his name in English football. The praise from his manager landed, but it did not inflate his ego.

“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.”

From loan circuit to Anfield nights

Iraola’s faith did not begin under the lights against Spurs. Within weeks of arriving in the summer, he told then sporting director Richard Hughes he wanted Koumas in the first-team squad, not sent out on another loan.

The Chester-born forward had already impressed on Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the United States. Those performances helped him force the door open: substitute cameos in both the Premier League and Champions League followed, and now a first senior man of the match award sits in his hands.

Could he have pictured this back in July?

“No, I would have woken up!” the Wales international 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.”

His route here has not been a straight sprint. Koumas, son of former Tranmere and West Bromwich Albion playmaker Jason, has 12 caps for Wales but had to wait for his club breakthrough.

Jürgen Klopp handed him his first Liverpool start more than two years ago, and Koumas marked it with a goal in a 3-0 FA Cup fifth-round win over Southampton. Then came the hard part: nothing. No further senior appearances for his boyhood club until Iraola walked through the door.

Instead, he went out to learn the trade the unforgiving way. A season on loan at Stoke in 2024-25. The first half of 2025-26 at Birmingham. The second half at Hull. Different managers, different styles, different pressures. All of it, in his mind, building towards nights like this.

“I never showed a weak mentality about how the future would look for me at Liverpool,” he insisted. Michael Owen and Gareth Bale were his childhood inspirations, but his focus never drifted from Anfield.

“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, with his family watching from a box and his phone pressed to his ear, that hunger finally had its reward. The question now is not whether Lewis Koumas belongs at this level, but how far this relentless, Liverpool-made forward can push himself from here.