Liverpool’s Rio Ngumoha is currently top of the dribbles leaderboard in the Champions League, beating the likes of Lamine Yamal and Michael Olise to first place.

The 18-year-old started Liverpool’s match against Fenerbahce and even after playing only a little over an hour of football, he topped the statistics for most dribbles completed in the game.

Ngumoha racked up seven from his left wing position, giving Fenerbahce full-back Archie Brown a tough evening, and that took his total to 22 so far this season.

That has him top of the statistics for most successful dribbles in the Champions League so far this season and he is six clear of second place Lamine Yamal.

Even more impressive, Ngumoha has achieved his number from fewer attempts with Yamal having tried 41 times while the Liverpool man is on 39.

Second in the table is AEK Athens’ Aboubakary Koita who has completed 14 for the Greek side from 26 attempts.

Olise is next on the list on 13 while Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze is fifth with 11, the same as Shakhtar’s Alisson.

One annoyance for Liverpool fans though was the lack of end product from Ngumoha against Fenerbahce. He failed to create any chances despite completing so many dribbles and often left Liverpool attackers waiting in the box for a cross that never came.

However, there is some solace to take in that it does not appear to be a pattern though as he created two big chances and got two assists last time out against Villarreal.

But there are still things to improve on from Ngumoha with Yamal being the gold standard of what a winger should do.

What separates the likes of Yamal from others is that he is consistently high across a lot of statistics. While he is second to Ngumoha on completed passes, he is top for big chances created having made five so far this season. Yamal also has three goals and four assists so far this season in the Champions League, putting him joint second for G/A in the competition.

For the trip to Fenerbahce and a meeting with former Liverpool player Dirk Kuyt, Andoni Iraola went with an unusual line-up as Bradley Barcola started through the middle, allowing Ngumoha to play on his preferred left-hand side while Alexander Isak was on the bench.

The explanation for that the Liverpool manager said was those players were fresher than the other options.

“I think we put in Victor [Munoz] and Rio [Ngumoha], they were more fresh,” Irola said. “We thought also that for Alex [Isak] it was maybe good to play 30 minutes, not more. We wanted to try Bradley. We tried Cody [Gakpo] in the past week against Chelsea. We wanted to play Bradley.

“We thought it would work well because I think Bradley, in terms of speed [and] the match-ups, it could be good for him. He hasn’t found the position too hard… all season he has been better when he has played outside wide, and then obviously with Cody, with Alex, I think we’ve been more dangerous.”