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Rio Ngumoha's stunning breakthrough could yet earn him a spot in Thomas Tuchel's England squad for the World Cup.
That is the view of former Premier League striker Troy Deeney, who feels the 17-year-old could follow in the footsteps of ex-Three Lions forward Theo Walcott and receive a shock call-up for next summer's tournament.
Former Arsenal and Everton star Walcott was a wildcard pick in Sven Goran Eriksson's squad for the 2006 World Cup aged just 17, after a scintillating six-month spell in his breakthrough campaign at Southampton in the Championship. Ngumoha, who turned 17 last week, has burst onto the scene in similar fashion, scoring Liverpool's last-gasp winner in the 3-2 win over Newcastle less than a fortnight ago.
Ex-Watford striker Deeney, who missed out on an England cap himself despite calls for him to be selected, told talkSPORT: “This is England. We always do something stupid, don’t we.
“It’s like when we took Theo Walcott, because he was a young kid and he was rapid. And obviously Theo went on to have a great career.
“But who knows. If Rio keeps playing and being involved like he is now, and scores seven or eight goals, he could probably go.
“There’s a few [players] like that, that you’d have to just watch and see.”
Ngumoha made his debut for England's under-19s side on Wednesday in a 2-0 win over Ukraine at Wembley.
In the same match, Arsenal talent Max Dowman came off the bench to break the record as the youngest-ever player to feature for England's under-19s, aged 15 years, eight months, and three days.
Both Ngumoha and Dowman have been included in Liverpool and Arsenal's respective Champions League squads and are expected to play significant parts in their clubs' seasons.
England boss Tuchel has already been impressed by the teenagers, but warned about putting too much pressure on young talent too soon.
“We need to be careful and hopefully everyone does everything with a parental view to protect them, and to not burn them [out] in all this excitement," Tuchel said last week.
"The strength at the moment is that they just do, that they’re living their dreams, that they don’t think so much, and hopefully they can keep this going and we need to make sure that we don’t put the pressure up if at some point comes a moment when it gets a little bit more difficult.
“I’m hugely impressed when I think what I did at 15, 16, they play for the best teams in the country, in Europe and the world, full stadiums in the most competitive league, it’s just an outstanding achievement already."
Tuchel explained the dangers of calling players up too early, after holding a "long, long discussion" before bringing 18-year-old Myles Lewis-Skelly into the England fold, who has since lost his starting place at Arsenal.
“Right now we see that it is not so easy to keep the momentum going for Myles, which is totally understandable," he said.
"Now it comes with a responsibility from us to not drop him on the first occasion, just because he does not start, so it is a fine line, and now there are two guys who are even younger than him.”
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