Liverpool starlet Lewis Koumas played 25 games on loan at Birmingham City last season
Lewis Koumas of Liverpool
Lewis Koumas of Liverpool
Like most Championship clubs, Birmingham City have had mixed success from the loan market in recent years.
Jay Stansfield was the epitome of a successful loan and Blues owner Tom Wagner was willing to go north of £12million to sign him permanently – even after relegation to League One.
Ibrahim Osman was another good one but Blues wouldn’t break their transfer record to sign him from Brighton. Jhon Solis was signed permanently for £6m in a deal that looks shrewder by the day.
For the successes of Osman and Solis, Blues had a few loans last season that simply didn’t work, one being that of Lewis Koumas.
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The forward arrived on loan from Liverpool shortly before his 20th birthday with a season of Championship football already under his belt at Stoke City, but Blues never got a tune out of him.
The high point of Koumas’s loan came towards the end when an injury crisis handed him a run of starts and he scored against Coventry City in a memorable 3-2 win.
But Osman’s January arrival was always likely to spell the end for Koumas and he returned to Liverpool before being redistributed to Hull City where he ended up winning promotion to the Premier League.
Most people expected Koumas to return to the Championship for another loan but new Liverpool boss Andoni Iraola had other ideas.
Iraola was impressed with Koumas during pre-season and told club bosses to ignore any loan offers because he wanted to keep him in his squad.
Koumas has made two appearances off the bench in the Premier League, plus a cameo in the Champions League, and started Liverpool’s Carabao Cup victory over Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday.
He was named Man of the Match after a performance in which he covered every blade of grass to create space and chances for his teammates.
Iraola said afterwards: “The energy he shows is contagious for the rest, when you see the ones up front giving everything you are kind of forced to go, go behind and use the same intensity levels.”
Koumas could barely believe it when Cody Gakpo was asked to hand him the Man of the Match award post-match and swiftly FaceTimed his family to show them.
The Wales international is getting a Premier League chance more quickly than many who watched him at Blues expected.
“I would have thought I was dreaming," Koumas said when asked if he saw this opportunity coming in the summer. "I’m just really happy and very grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given. You never know when your last time on the pitch for Liverpool is going to be. I just try to leave everything out there every time.”
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