Liam Hughes has joined Liverpool from Celtic.
The 19-year-old keeper played for Celtic’s u-18 side last season but hasn’t featured in any matches this season, whether that was contract related isn’t known.
Celtic have been able to reverse the trend, in the summer of 2019 they signed England u-16 goalkeeper Tobi Oluwayemi from Spurs but the Hughes deal continues a worrying trend of young players leaving Celtic to feed into the Academy of other clubs.
In 2019 Liam Morrison moved to Bayern Munich where he has been joined by Barry Hepburn. Down south Josh Adam left Celtic on his 16th birthday to join Manchester City.
Even before Lockdown there was issues for young players making the step up from Academy football with no worthwhile Reserve football or loan system to feed into. Recently it was reported that the u-18 squad was put on Furlough.
Liverpool have completed the signing of 19-year-old goalkeeper Liam Hughes from Celtic. One for the U23 setup.#LFC pic.twitter.com/BEGM2FgZEc
— Neil Jones (@neiljonesgoal) February 1, 2021
Introducing Hughes, the Celtic website reported:
Signed from Northern Ireland Premier League outfit, Dungannon Swifts in February 2018, Liam Hughes has gone from strength to strength between the sticks at Celtic.
Despite being on the losing side in the 2019 Scottish Youth Cup final, the highly-rated keeper, was easily one of the Hoops stand-out players with a string of top-class stops, including a second half penalty save.
Liam who previously played for Portadown Under-19s, graduated from Celtic’s Under-19s to the Reserve Squad. During the 2019/20 Campaign, he featured in the first team matchday squads for the first time when Craig Gordon was injured, gaining valuable experience in and around the top team.
“The step up is always going to be challenging, but that’s what you want and what you expect at this club. Going forward, I’d love to be involved as much with the first-team as I possibly can, and to keep improving my own game as much as I can as well.”