A Liverpool forward who had not scored a competitive goal in well over a year found the net with a stunning free kick.
RECORD DATE NOT STATED 18th March 2026; Anfield, Liverpool, Merseyside, England; UEFA Champions League Football, Liverpool versus Galatasaray; a general view of the stadium PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxUK DavidxBlunsden
RECORD DATE NOT STATED 18th March 2026; Anfield, Liverpool, Merseyside, England; UEFA Champions League Football, Liverpool versus Galatasaray; a general view of the stadium PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxUK DavidxBlunsden
Liverpool fans had plenty to take from a 2–2 draw at Chelsea on Saturday, a game in which the Reds came from two goals down.
Few moments meant more than the equaliser, which came from a player who had not scored a competitive goal in well over a year.
Three minutes after half time at Kingsmeadow, the visitors won a free kick a long way from goal, and Jayden Danns curled the ball into the net with the kind of confidence that suggested the long months on the sidelines had done nothing to dull his eye for goal.
For anyone who has followed his career over the past 18 months, it was a moment that meant far more than the scoreline suggested.
It is easy to forget how quickly he burst on to the scene, making his senior debut against Luton in February 2024, sitting on the bench at Wembley days later as Liverpool won the Carabao Cup, and then scoring twice against Southampton in the FA Cup at Anfield within the same week.
That remarkable spell earned him the Premier League 2 Player of the Month award and led Page to describe him as a possible “England’s next number 9.”
His last first team goal came against Accrington Stanley in the FA Cup on 11 January 2025, some 651 days before Saturday’s free kick.
He scored for the under 21s against Sparta Prague four days later, but almost everything that followed seemed to go against him.
A loan move to Sunderland in early 2025 ended without a single appearance because of a back problem.
In September 2025 he went off against Ipswich with a hamstring injury that, according to Anfield Index, needed surgery after the tendon tore away from the bone.
His comeback against Manchester City in March lasted less than half an hour before the same hamstring went again, and a further problem this summer cost him Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the United States.
This season has been a gradual rebuild, with Danns playing carefully managed minutes for the under 21s and in the EFL Trophy without finding the net before Saturday.
He was also named as an unused substitute in all three of Liverpool’s Champions League games, a sign that Andoni Iraola still sees a place for him in the wider squad.
Jay Spearing, the under 21s player coach, could not hide his delight afterwards.
“We are delighted for Dannsy to get his first goal of the season,” he said.
“It was a brilliant free kick and he deserved it.”
“And he got 70 minutes in, which was great for him.”
The 70 minutes may prove just as important as the goal itself.
Danns is still only 20, his scoring record at youth level remains impressive, and his first team future will depend largely on whether his body can now give him a clear run.
The under 21s do not play again until 10 November, which gives him a fortnight to keep building fitness before his next chance to prove that Saturday was the start of something rather than a one off.
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