Jose Enrique applauds what 22-year-old Liverpool youngster did out on-loan this weekend

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2023/24 hasn’t been the best season for Liverpool’s loan army so far.

With a number of players returning early from spells at temporary clubs, there has been plenty of disappointment for those away from Anfield for the year.

Despite that, there have been a few green shoots. One has been Tyler Morton at Hull City, who has quickly become a mainstay in the Tigers midfield. Since joining Morton on Humberside, Fabio Carvalho has also done well. Just yesterday the 21-year-old bagged an absolute screamer.

Another to have had a positive time has been Dutch defender Sepp van den Berg. Although his team, Mainz, are struggling towards the bottom of the Bundesliga, Van den Berg has been really good. His latest display came in a battling 2-1 defeat to table-toppers Bayer Leverkusen.

Having played the full 90 minutes on Friday, Van den Berg took to Instagram to share a message for the club’s supporters. “We win together, we lose together,” wrote the 22-year-old, with the word ‘together’ twice placed in bold.

Among those in the comments was former Liverpool defender Jose Enrique. Clearly impressed by Van den Berg’s performance and attitude, Enrique left two applauding emojis in appreciation.

Van den Berg going well at Mainz

Ironically, Friday night could end up having been something of an audition for Van den Berg. The Leverkusen manager is of course Xabi Alonso, who is the favourite to be Liverpool’s next manager.

In that light, it bodes well that he turned in a good display. Should Alonso arrive at Anfield, he’ll surely want to run the rule over the Netherlands U21 international.

Having been registered as one of the fastest defenders in the Bundesliga this season, Van den Berg is surely on Alonso’s radar. At least a little.

He’s been putting the kind of displays which get young players noticed.

For Liverpool, that is good news either way. The Reds have recently been told that Van den Berg has shown enough that he could have a future at Anfield.

But even if that isn’t the case, his displays at Mainz will have raised his value quite a bit to the outside world. As a result, Liverpool could take the chance to sell him for a good fee this summer.

Quite what they’ll do will depend on the new manager and how he rates Sepp. The Reds could still be on the lookout for a new centre-back ahead of next season and so it would be wise to assess Van den Berg before they do commit to that.

If he’s deemed to be now of sufficient quality, Liverpool could save themselves a fortune in the market.

Truthfully, we’d like to see that happen. It’s a shame that Van den Berg never made the grade under Jurgen Klopp. But with a new man coming in, the slate will be wiped clean. Keep up the good work Sepp and let’s see what happens.