The 20-year-old striker made his senior debut for Jurgen Klopp's side in November, and has been in prolific form for the Under-21s this season
The timing is perfect, almost enough to draw suspicions of a set-up. Just as Layton Stewart is explaining his knack of scoring goals, and how he has previously been compared to the likes of Michael Owen and Fernando Torres during his Liverpool academy career, along comes another Reds striking great.
Robbie Fowler, sadly, declines GOAL’s invitation to join the poacher’s chat – he has a podcast to record – but his parting words say plenty about how Stewart is perceived within Liverpool.
“He doesn’t need my advice,” Fowler grins. “He’s doing well enough on his own…”
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It’s a fair point, too. With 18 goals from only 20 appearances this season, Stewart is the academy’s leading scorer, and in November the 20-year-old, who grew up just a couple of miles from the AXA Training Centre, fulfilled a lifelong dream by making his debut for the Reds’ first-team.
Whatever the personable Scouser goes on to achieve, few feelings will top that, walking out at Anfield in front of 52,000 and leading the line for Jurgen Klopp’s side in a Carabao Cup tie against Derby County.
“Hard to describe,” he smiles, although in fairness to him, as with most things he does, he ends up having a pretty good go.
Getty ImagesThe early days
Stewart grew up in Stockbridge Village, a short drive from Liverpool’s new Kirkby training ground and even closer to their former base at Melwood.
He was, in his own words, “always a mad red” but like Fowler, who famously grew up an Evertonian, he too had a brief flirtation with the city’s other club. “I actually played for Everton first,” he says, “but when I was seven I chose Liverpool, and that was that.”
Stewart’s group at Kirkby was a good one, featuring a host of players who are still with the club to this day.
“There was Tyler Morton, Maxi Woltman, Dom Corness, Tom Hill, James Norris came a bit later too,” he says. “We all went to school together at Rainhill, and we’re all still close now of course.”
AdvertisementGetty ImagesThe rise
A natural goalscorer and a fiery, outgoing character, by the time he was 16, Stewart was being talked about as a potential first-teamer at Liverpool.
“Do you want a name to look out for?” Alex Inglethorpe, the Reds’ academy director, once asked GOAL at the end of an interview.“Layton Stewart. He can be anything he wants to be.”
In December 2019, Stewart was on the bench as, with Klopp’s first-team squad in Qatar for the Club World Cup, Liverpool were forced to select a virtual youth team for their Carabao Cup quarter-final at Aston Villa. Hill and Norris both played that night, as Neil Critchley’s side acquitted themselves well, but lost 5-0 to a Villa side featuring the likes of Ezri Konsa, Douglas Luiz and current Celtic star Jota.
An ankle injury denied him the chance to feature when, for different reasons, Liverpool again fielded a youth side for their FA Cup fourth-round replay against Shrewsbury at Anfield in February 2020, but he signed his first professional contract soon after, and at the end of that season was rewarded for his progress with a new, long-term deal.
Getty ImagesThe agony
Stewart remembers the day it all changed for him. It was March 2021, and he was playing for Barry Lewtas’ Under-23s team in a Premier League 2 match against West Ham at Kirkby.
In the second half, he went to chase a ball over the top, collided with a Hammers defender and “felt something go” in his knee.
“I heard a horrible noise, so I knew I’d done something bad,” he says now, more than two years on. “I didn’t know at first where the pain was coming from. But then I realised it was my knee and I was like ‘oh no, what have I done?’
“My knee actually locked into a bent position. The physios were asking me to straighten it and I just couldn’t.”
The initial diagnosis was that Stewart had torn the meniscus in his right knee, a bad enough injury in itself. A second scan, however, would bring even worse news.
“It turned out I’d done everything I could have done in my knee,” Stewart says, ruefully. “I’d done the meniscus, the medial collateral ligament and the anterior cruciate ligament too.”
GettyThe comeback
Still only 18, and with his progress firmly checked, Stewart set about getting his head around the recovery process.
“My mindset initially was ‘I’m going to smash it and be back ASAP’,” he says. “But the reality is much more difficult than you could imagine.
“I was in a bit of a mad place, because I’d been doing so well and then this had happened. It set me right back.
“And while I was doing my rehab, I was seeing a lot of lads getting their debuts. I was buzzing for them, don’t get me wrong, but of course there’s a part of you that thinks ‘that could have been me’ and that gets you down.”
Stewart credits Liverpool’s physios, Tony Jones, Paul Kelly and Scott McAuley, as well as Lewtas, with keeping him focused and away from the darker thoughts which can engulf an injured player, and admits that Hill, who suffered a similarly serious knee injury in August 2020, “must have been sick to death of the calls and texts” he received from his pal.
There was also, Stewart says, some welcome support from some of the Reds’ senior professionals.
“Ox [Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain] was a big help,” he says. “He had the same injury, and when he found out what I’d done he came over and was always talking to me, making sure I was alright and making sure I was doing my work. Joe Gomez was the same, really good. I’ll never forget that, because it meant a lot to a young player.”
