The inside story of Conor Bradley's Liverpool rise

For Barry Lewtas, there's one distinct memory that comes to mind when eulogising Conor Bradley's rise through the Liverpool ranks.

The Liverpool under-21s manager, who first met the fearless full-back in late 2018, has plenty of engaging anecdotes to tell as he relives the Northern Ireland international's instantaneous, overnight-like surge to Anfield stardom.

"We played Manchester United at Leigh Sports Village in September 2020 and Conor got a booking very early on," recalls Lewtas. "He fouled Anthony Elanga, it was quite a rash tackle. Anthony was a fantastic wide player at that level and on the sides, we were like ‘Let’s see if Conor can play 90 minutes against someone so fast with that yellow card hanging over his head.'"

Fast forward to shortly after the full-time whistle and Bradley was revelling in the acclaim of his fellow scholars as Liverpool ran out 5-3 winners against Neil Wood's United side. "His performance was unbelievable," adds Lewtas. "It was one of them with Conor, looking back at his journey, it wasn’t that he surprised you but he just passed lots of different tests.

"That year was an unbelievable season for him really, if you were to look back at some of the players he faced as a 17-year-old playing in the Premier League 2. He was up against players like Jack Clarke [Tottenham], Elanga [United] and Reiss Nelson [Arsenal]. Every time we played a game, it seemed their best and most established player was a left winger."

For Bradley, that particular afternoon in Greater Manchester is a world away from where he now finds himself at Liverpool, top of the Premier League and set to start Sunday's League Cup final against Chelsea at Wembley. That, though, doesn't mean it holds any less importance in his