Liverpool’s Cup Win Reveals Challenges for Frimpong and Endo

Liverpool are into the fourth round of the EFL Cup, but the real story at Anfield on Tuesday night was not the scoreline. It was the pecking order. And for a couple of senior players, that order is becoming brutally clear.

Andoni Iraola rang the changes – ten of them – from the side that drew with Fulham at the weekend. Cup nights like this are usually a sanctuary for the squad players, a chance to remind the manager they exist. Instead, against Tottenham Hotspur, it felt like a trial. Some passed. Some did not.

Frimpong Exposed on a Big Night

Trey Nyoni, James McConnell and Lewis Koumas were handed rare starts, the kind of opportunity young players dream about. Jeremie Frimpong also came in at right-back, a position that should suit him perfectly under a coach who prizes attacking full-backs.

It never quite did.

Iraola wants his full-backs to drive games, to stretch opponents, to pin them back. The Netherlands international offered almost nothing going forward, and that might have been survivable if he had locked things down defensively. He did not do that either.

Tottenham quickly sensed a weakness. They went after his flank relentlessly. Mathys Tel, Mohammed Kudus and Omar Marmoush all took turns isolating him, dragging him into one-on-one duels he never looked comfortable in. For long spells of his 90 minutes, Frimpong looked like a man trying to plug holes in a dam with his bare hands.

This is not a one-off problem. Since arriving for £30m from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer of 2025, Frimpong has struggled to convince in a red shirt. The criticism from supporters has been loud and frequent, stretching back into last season and refusing to quieten this term.

Right now, Ronald Araujo is clearly Iraola’s first-choice right-back. Conor Bradley is edging back towards fitness and will soon be in the mix again. Frimpong, once signed to be a dynamic force on the flank, now looks like the weak link in a squad still searching for someone who can even come close to the standard Trent Alexander-Arnold set before his move to Real Madrid.

The Dutchman has time on his side, but not much margin for error. He needs rapid improvement, not incremental progress, to convince anyone that he belongs in Liverpool’s long-term plans. At present, he is being spoken about as one of the squad’s most vulnerable players. That is a damning place to be for a £30m signing in a side chasing trophies.

Endo Frozen Out

If Frimpong at least had minutes to make his case, Wataru Endo did not even get that.

The 33-year-old midfielder, already omitted from Liverpool’s 25-man Champions League squad last week – alongside Federico Chiesa – watched on again as others leapfrogged him. McConnell and Nyoni were both named ahead of him in Europe, a clear signal of where he stands. Tottenham at home in the EFL Cup, with ten changes to the starting XI, looked like his lifeline.

It never came.

Endo stayed rooted to the bench, an unused substitute once more, just as he has been in all four of Liverpool’s Premier League matches so far this season. If a rotated cup tie, at Anfield, against a heavily changed Spurs side is not the moment to give a £16m senior professional some minutes, then what is?

He had impressed at centre-back against Como in pre-season, showing his versatility and game intelligence in a deeper role. That experiment has not been repeated. On Tuesday, Iraola trusted 22-year-old McConnell and 19-year-old Nyoni in midfield instead, even with Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai starting on the bench.

The manager has not hidden his stance. Speaking recently, Iraola admitted that Endo sits behind a cluster of others in his position.

“The problem is, in front of him in his position, I have a lot of players," he said. "He’s competing against a lot of players because we are also giving minutes to Trey (Nyoni), Ryan (Gravenberch), Alexis (Mac Allister), Dom (Szoboszlai), players that I am selecting right now. But Wata is definitely a player that I like and for sure he will have his moments.”

The words are polite. The reality is ruthless. If he cannot get on the pitch when the manager rotates almost an entire XI and leans on teenagers in his role, those “moments” look a long way off.

Endo’s contract expires at the end of the season. With younger options emerging and established stars ahead of him, Liverpool are staring at a simple equation: sell in January or let him walk for nothing in the summer. Given his current status, a winter exit feels less like speculation and more like the logical outcome.

Iraola’s choices against Spurs said more than any soundbite ever could. Frimpong was targeted and struggled; Endo was ignored altogether. Liverpool are through to the next round, but for two experienced professionals, this cup tie may be remembered as the night their Anfield futures quietly slipped away.