It has been 21 months since Billy Koumetio made his first start for Liverpool.
The Frenchman was one of four fringe centre-backs to depart the Reds on loan this summer. As Rhys Williams and Sepp van den Berg moved to Aberdeen and Mainz respectively for the season back in July, and Nat Phillips was snapped up by Celtic just before transfer deadline day, he was granted his own temporary departure to newly-promoted Ligue 2 side USL Dunkerque late last month.
The switch sees him return to play in his native France for the first time since moving to Liverpool from Orleans in 2018. Having seen his first temporary exit to Austria Vienna not work out last season, limited to just 11 appearances before returning prematurely to Anfield, the 20-year-old will be determined to make the most of his second loan opportunity in more familiar surroundings.
Having seen that defensive quartet depart on loan this summer, it was teenager Jarell Quansah that Jurgen Klopp turned to off the bench for the Reds’ recent victories over Newcastle United and Aston Villa. A couple of seasons ago Koumetio would have perhaps hoped for such opportunities to instead fall his way.
Affectionately nicknamed ‘Billy the Kid’ by Klopp when impressing in pre-season in the summer of 2020, Koumetio perhaps hasn’t made as much of a first team impact as he would have liked over the past three years. As a result, his first Liverpool start, coming against Leicester City in the League Cup in December 2021, also remains his last.
Whether he does enough back in France to get further senior opportunities for the Reds, who are in the market for new reinforcements at centre-back in the next 12 months, remains to be seen. But he’ll be looking to catch Liverpool’s eye in his homeland once again, and whatever happens next, has no regrets.
“I was at Lyon. In France, if a club doesn’t offer you something, you have the ability to go anyway,” an enthusiastic Koumetio revealed in an exclusive interview with the ECHO last season when explaining how he ended up at Liverpool in the first place. “So I was in Lyon and was playing Under-16s.
“We had three centre-backs who were the same foot, same age but different style of play. One moved, the other stayed and is now playing in the first team. I think I was one of only two players at that time who didn’t get any offer from Lyon.
“So this is when Liverpool came. I was like okay. My agent went to Liverpool to hold talks and called me before he went. He said, “Billy, if Liverpool come to me and offer you something interesting, would you go?” I said, “Okay, let me think about it and I will call you back.”
“I put the phone down and instantly thought, ‘Am I crazy?!’ I called him back and said, “If Liverpool offer a contract, I will go straight away!” He went and then he came back and we had the talks and everything.
“It took a bit of time but I said yes and accepted the project. I was very happy, am still happy, and will always be happy in the future with that choice! For sure, 100%!”
Koumetio hasn’t always been a centre-back. He actually started his career as a winger, before moving back to left-back. Having seen injuries derail his progress at Lyon at times, it was enforced absences elsewhere that saw him transformed into a centre-half.
“When I was a kid, I always wanted to play winger,” he admitted. “I think most players when we’re young want to play forward! That was my position when I was young, I was playing left-wing.
“I was scoring a lot of goals and my parents were always there to watch. When I was younger, I wanted to play like Ronaldo. When I was really young!
“This changed quickly because my position changed. Now, Van Dijk is the one. He is the one I look to, he is incredible. To have the opportunity to train and play with him is a pleasure.
“It’s a privilege to train with him and the other defenders and talk to them every day. I take what I can take from any of them. Whether it’s Konate or Matip or Van Dijk or Gomez. I take bits from all of them and make my own game. It is a privilege to see them every day and I learn something new from them every day.
“When I was 13 or 14, I changed position. But not to centre-back, to left-back. I had a difficult year at Under-14s. I was not playing that much and I was growing, 12 centimetres in one year.
“So I had all kinds of pain. Knee, tendon, all that kind of stuff. So I was trying to find myself on the pitch and not playing. I was losing speed as well.
“But one day I remember very well. It was one of the last games of the season. The trainer put me centre-back and I was playing well. Having moved to left-back, I was more defensive and learning how to defend, and playing from the back.
At the end of the season, I was on the bench and we were playing PSG. We had an injury at centre-back and the second coach told the first coach to, ‘Put Billy in!’
“When he put me in, I did an incredible game. An incredible game and everybody was shocked. And from there, I stayed at that position and did the whole season in that position at Under-15s.
“I enjoyed playing that position and never changed from that time. I was very comfortable and this was when I learned how to lead a backline.”
Two years later and he was playing centre-back for Liverpool.
“Billy the kid! He doesn’t look like a kid. In my opinion, his face looks like a kid but then all the rest is like ‘Wow!’
Klopp was full of praise for the young Frenchman when including him in his pre-season squad in the summer of 2020. And he wasn’t the only one.
Koumetio admits he was shocked to hear such words from his manager, and although it wasn’t his first taste of training with the first team, revealed how his senior team-mates helped him settle in.
“I was shocked to be honest, I was shocked,” he said. “I thought, ‘Okay, but I need to carry on! Just because I hear this, it doesn’t mean I have arrived anywhere. I have to keep pushing, I have to keep working and do everything that the manager asks me to do.’
“I wasn’t resting on my laurels. I was always making sure that I had the motivation every day to show him and confirm to him that I can keep doing the things he likes me to do.
“I wasn’t resting on my laurels. I was always making sure that I had the motivation every day to show him and confirm to him that I can keep doing the things he likes me to do.
“It was very good (to be included in the squad). I didn’t take it for granted, it was a big compliment. The manager, I was talking to him every day in training.
“Hendo (Jordan Henderson) was coming to me, the elders of the team were coming to me and talking to me about the way I play. On the first days I didn’t know what the training would look like or how I would do, but what I will always remember, 100%, is the way he made me feel comfortable.
I felt like his real family. He said to me on my first game, I will always remember, he said to me, “Just play like you play in training. You are playing good, you are playing brilliant. This is your game. Just enjoy it. Do what you can do. If there is a mistake, don’t worry about it. Just do what you can. If there is anything bad, it is me, it is not you! Just enjoy.”
“‘Phew!’ When I was able to do the things I do well, I felt really welcome from every single player.”
He continued: “Divock (Origi) helped me a lot also. The impact he had on me was big. I was close to him and am still close, so I see the way it works. I see his mentality, and it’s not just seeing the way it works in training, but he was explaining to me his background and how he worked to get there.
That can help me be better on the pitch and at the club. I take anything that he’s giving to me, so he helped me a lot for sure and made me comfortable. When you come for the first time (to the first team), whether it’s in pre-season or being in the group, or playing a game, seeing the elders, come over to you, talk to you, make you comfortable, offer you a seat at their table. ‘I’m here sitting with the first team!’
“You feel good, you feel calmer. It’s a real family. Hendo and Sadio (Mane) came to me and were talking to me, in the gym, seeing the way it works in the gym. They were helping me and pushing me harder.
“Sadio is always the one who was there before everybody. He works really hard. I came also early one time, but not as early as Sadio, so I was seeing him working in the gym. I was like, ‘Wow! He is working in the gym already.’
This is the time when people come in and go to eat, but he’s not eating. He’s there, working in the gym. ‘Wow’. He was doing sit-ups, and sit-ups, and sit-ups. ‘Wow’. I went to get changed and went to get something quickly to eat. Came back to the changing room, and then went to join him in the gym. I see him working, and then the squad came 30-45 minutes afterwards, and he was still working there! He was the last to go out of there. ‘Wow’.
“Sometimes, he is one who gives me advice on how to work and how to do things. It’s not just him, they are all examples to me. I look at the way they are doing things. And if, for example, for 10 seconds or one minute I’m just there doing nothing, it would be like, ‘Billy! What are you doing?! Come on, come on! Give more, give more!’
But Sadio is one that was pushing me and I see his mindset and his impact. It’s not only me, you saw him talking to the other youngsters and Divock and Hendo talking to the young ones who come from the academy. It helps makes us comfortable and puts us in a very good position to play football and do the things that the club wants us to do.”
Despite still being just 20, Koumetio isn’t ‘Billy the Kid’ anymore. He first trained with the Liverpool first team four years ago, has played twice competitively for Klopp’s side, and played in Europe for Austria Vienna last season.
And while he still has it all to prove on loan with Dunkerque, you won’t miss the giant defender wearing his trademark number 89 on his back. Also his number at both Liverpool and Vienna, such a selection is very much deliberate.
“I had the opportunity to choose, I had the opportunity to choose when I came here (to Vienna),” he recalled. “But I said I wanted to keep the 89.
“I know sometimes when we say the number seven, everybody thinks about one player. When we say 66, everybody thinks about one player. Not so much five or four.
“I want to say 89 is going to be my number! They said, ‘Are you sure?’ and I said yes! 89, I will make this number mine! When you say 89, you will know that this is me.”
It might be 21 months since Koumetio last started for Liverpool, but now on loan back in France, the 20-year-old is determined to make sure you still remember the name.
