Who is Calum Scanlon? Liverpool defender signed for £500,000 included in Everton squad
Calum Scanlon has been named in the matchday squad for Liverpool's Merseyside derby with Everton at Anfield.
Jurgen Klopp is currently without five first-team players due to injury, resulting in the Reds' boss calling on some lesser-known names to fill out his substitutes bench.
One of those included in the 20-man squad is Scanlon, a left-back by trade, who joined the club in February 2021 in a £500,000 deal from boyhood club Birmingham City.
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The teenager made his under-18s debut during the 2020/21 season as an U16 player and has since become a regular for Barry Lewtas' under-21s group.
Scanlon signed his first professional contract with the club in March 2022 and was included in Klopp's 32-man squad for the club's pre-season camp in Germany this summer.
The 18-year-old established himself as a vital member of Marc Bridge-Wilkinson's Under-18s side in the two years since making his debut as a 15-year-old. In fact, such was the extent of Scanlon's development during the early months of his career on Merseyside that his first outing for the U18s, in a 3-0 Premier League North victory over Derby County, came after he had completed a day of school as a Year 11 pupil.
"He looked comfortable on his debut, he didn't look out of place at this level and that's all you can ask for," Bridge-Wilkinson told the ECHO, assessing the defender's eye-catching second-half cameo.
Despite a four-month injury lay-off at the start of 2023, last season was a promising one as he caught the eye in the UEFA Youth League knock-out rounds after first-choice left-back Luke Chambers made a mid-season switch to the Scottish Premiership to sample first-team experience with Kilmarnock.
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