Rio Ngumoha fires Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool to pre-season win over Wrexham

Andoni Iraola maintained his perfect start as Liverpool head coach as Rio Ngumoha’s second-half strike earned the Reds a 1-0 victory over Wrexham in New York.

Liverpool followed up their pre-season win over Sunderland with another encouraging display at Yankee Stadium, overcoming a Wrexham side that had already recorded impressive victories over Manchester United and Leeds during their summer schedule.

With Joe Gomez sidelined through injury after the Sunderland fixture, Dominik Szoboszlai captained the side and was deployed in an unfamiliar centre-back role. Despite the positional switch, the Hungarian played a key part in Liverpool’s best opening of the first half, picking out Harvey Elliott, whose cut-back found Josh Abe, only for former Liverpool goalkeeper Danny Ward to produce a fine save.

Iraola refreshed his side with four half-time substitutions, introducing highly-rated youngster Rio Ngumoha among the changes.

The teenager proved decisive with 15 minutes remaining, embarking on a driving run through the Wrexham defence before seeing his effort take a deflection and loop beyond Ward to score the only goal of the contest.

Wrexham came close to snatching an equaliser late on when Kieffer Moore found himself with a clear opportunity inside the box, but the striker failed to convert, allowing Liverpool to secure consecutive wins on their pre-season tour of the United States.

The Reds now travel to Chicago ahead of Sunday’s meeting with Leeds, where several senior stars are expected to make their first appearances of the summer.

Reflecting on the performance, Iraola felt his side had taken another step forward despite the narrower scoreline.

“I think overall we were more solid than the other day,” he said. “It was a different kind of game. The pitch is quite narrow and there are not a lot of spaces. But, I think we had good spells. And even if the other day we scored more goals and it looked nicer, I think today we were more a team and more collective.

“I think we’re still not there [showing his identity]. We sometimes arrive too late, but I think it’s a step forward, since especially the first half against Sunderland.

“That is more of a reference than the second half. Slowly, I hope every game we are closer and closer. We start to add new bodies, because now we are playing with a lot of the young players. We have to add the senior players that are starting to train with us, so we can arrive to the beginning of the season in a good place.”

Iraola also confirmed supporters should expect to see several high-profile names return against Leeds, with Florian Wirtz, Ryan Gravenberch and Alexander Isak all nearing their first pre-season minutes after linking up with the squad in Chicago following their World Cup commitments.

When asked if the quartet would play against Leeds, Iraola said: “Yes, my idea is for Ryan [Gravenberch], for Florian [Wirtz], for Alex [Isak], for even Jacquet to have their first minutes against Leeds.

“We’ll see how many minutes they can play, but we have to start slowly integrating more of the senior players that have had less training sessions. I think they should be ready on the weekend to have their first minutes.”