Liverpool reached terms with Saint-Étienne for the French forward Djylian N’Guessan at the very end of August. It was reported to have been agreed on the player’s side too, with Liverpool said to have received the authorisation needed for a medical. Whilst supporters understandably wanted the Reds to spend money on players who could impact the first team straightaway, this was another gifted teenager who was signed early and left at his current club for close to a year before he will actually arrive on Merseyside.
Djylian N’Guessan was born in Saint-Nazaire on the 30th of August 2008 and has come entirely through Saint-Étienne’s own academy. He became a member of the club’s youth system in 2015 before being fast-tracked into senior football whilst still only 16. He has gone on to make 13 appearances for the first team, mostly coming from the bench, and scored his first senior goal in a Coupe de France win over Quetigny in the November of 2025. Primarily a central striker, he has also been used on both flanks and is regularly described as two-footed.
Hard working both with and without the ball, as well as sharp in front of goal, it is for France’s youth sides that N’Guessan has really made his name. He scored 11 goals in 11 appearances at Under-17 level, which was the form that carried into the 2025 European Under-17 Championship, where he scored four goals for a France team that reached the final before losing 3-0 to Portugal in Tirana. It was a performance that earned him a place in the tournament’s official Team of the Tournament as centre forward.
He has since stepped up to the Under-20 side, starting at that summer’s Under-20 World Cup. Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur had all had an interest in him before Liverpool made their move. What the Reds have signed is potential, looking at the numbers that he has managed at club level so far. It is fair to say that the gap between his club record and his international one is unusually wide for a player attracting this much attention. His time at Saint-Étienne now runs to the summer of 2027, with the French club reportedly sending him on loan to Brest.
