The instant Conor first saw Dean’s overly young face, he froze for a moment without quite meaning to.
But he pulled himself together almost immediately, his manner turned friendly.
A new signing who’d earned one-on-one coaching from Heighway himself, and had his accommodation bumped up as an exception to the usual rules—there was no way this was an ordinary kid.
Someone worth staying on good terms with.
On top of that, Conor was already fairly well liked around Kirkby, and it was his social instincts that got him there.
Whoever he was dealing with, there was no way he’d let himself leave a bad impression.
Dean gave a slight nod, replying politely.
“Hello.
I’m Dean Scott.”
“My family’s from St Helens, Merseyside.” Conor was a natural talker, and the conversation opened right up the moment he spoke, without a hint of awkwardness.
Dean glanced up at that and answered gently, “I know that place.
Johnny Vegas is from St Helens.
I live in West Derby, in Liverpool.”
Conor’s face lit up at once, and he laughed brightly.
“That’s right!
Johnny’s show, Ideal, was massive back home.
Actually, I don’t live far from his hometown at all—I’m from Haydock.”
He extended a warm invitation to his new roommate.
“You should come round to mine sometime when we’re off.
Haydock’s a great laugh, especially Haydock Park Racecourse—it’s really well known, the whole experience there is brilliant!”
Once he got going on stories from home, Conor didn’t stop.
“Oh, this is a good one—you know Ferguson, right?
That old man at Man United everyone loves to hate!” Conor gave a wink.
With United and Liverpool being bitter rivals, there was no way he had much love for Ferguson personally, but the man’s achievements in English football were real, undeniable, whether you liked it or not.
Conor grinned.
“I heard he used to bring horses to race at Haydock Park.
Lost badly, every time.
Face like thunder clouds, apparently.
Ha!”
Hearing the name Ferguson, which meant nothing to him, Dean admitted plainly, “I don’t know much about football.
I always went to Bishop John Catholic School, and I never really paid attention to the people or the stories in the football world.”
“Whoa, I know that school!” Conor’s voice jumped up at once, his eyes were filling with something close to reverence.
“That’s Gerrard’s old school!
Gerrard’s my absolute idol.
I play midfield too, and my whole dream is putting on the red of the Reds one day and playing for Liverpool’s first team!”
Back and forth, the two of them fell into relaxed conversation, and any sense of being strangers melted away fast.
After a few minutes of chatting, Conor suddenly smacked his forehead, his expression turned serious.
“Oh, no!
I nearly forgot the whole reason I’m here.
The boss specifically told me to work with you on training today.”
He straightened up at once and was waving Dean over.
“Come on, let’s get moving.
If the coach catches us just standing around chatting, we’ll both be in for it.”
“Let me walk you through it.” Conor set up the balls as he explained, clear and precisely.
“Boss wants us doing a three-cone touch-and-pass drill.
I’ll knock the ball toward you from different directions, and you need to remember the core rule—don’t let the ball die under your feet.”
“So say I play the ball to your left foot—your very first touch needs to already be pushing it off into the open space up to your right, and you accelerate into that space straight away, then bring it back and pass it to me.
Keep the whole thing flowing the entire time—no pausing, no dragging your feet.”
“Got it.”
Dean locked the key points in firmly and got himself ready.
Training began properly.
In the first few attempts, Dean still carried a beginner’s rawness—his control over the weight and placement of his touch wasn’t quite precise yet, and a few of his first touches ran slightly too big, leaving the whole sequence looking a little sluggish.
But Conor showed not the slightest impatience, staying encouraging and patient the whole time.
“It’s fine, take your time.
Everyone’s like this the first go.
Just find your rhythm.”
Dean’s ability to learn was, frankly, terrifying.
After reviewing just a handful of mistakes, he’d already locked in exactly the right touch weight, the right angle to push the ball, and the right timing for shifting his weight.
Before long, his touch-and-move sequences turned completely fluid—every single touch landed the ball right into the space he needed for his next run, his acceleration crisp and clean, the back-and-forth passing rhythm was growing faster and steadier by the moment.
Watching Dean improve at this speed; Conor couldn’t help giving him a thumbs up.
You could tell just from his first touch alone that this kid’s fundamentals were rock-solid.
First touch, after all, said a lot about a player’s basic technical grounding.
Some players’ first touch sent the ball five meters away from them.
Some players had a first touch that stuck to their feet like glue.
And some players had a first touch that landed exactly on the line of their next run forward.
That gap—that was everything.
After one round of high-intensity training, the two of them stopped for a short break.
In the pause, Conor asked curiously, “So, which academy were you training with before this?
Your feel for the ball, your fundamentals—they’re way too solid for someone just starting out.
The rate you’re improving is ridiculous.”
Dean shook his head slightly.
“I’ve never trained with any academy.
Today’s the first time I’ve ever done proper football training.”
“What?!”
Conor’s pupils shrank at once, his eyes went wide, his whole body was freezing on the spot, his face flooded with disbelief, the shock pulled a loud exclamation out of him before he could stop it.
“First day?!
Dean, come on, don’t mess about.
That’s not even a little bit funny.”
Dean gave a small shrug, his expression was completely level.
“I’m not messing about.
This really is my first day of training.”
Looking at the plain, sincere honesty on Dean’s face.
Conor finally had to accept that he wasn’t lying, not even slightly.
In that moment, something inside him rattled loose.
“Bloody hell…”
He muttered it under his breath, still struggling to steady himself.
This three-cone dynamic touch-and-pass drill was a lot harder than basic passing.
The batch of academy boys he’d come up with had all spent a solid month, no shortcuts, drilling basic short passing and stationary ball control before they were even allowed near this drill, once their fundamentals were truly locked in. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
They were the same age—and Dean was touching a proper training session for the very first time!
Suddenly, an even more absurd thought shot through Conor’s head, leaving him completely stunned.
He himself had already secured a place in Liverpool’s U16 squad.
And Heighway had specifically arranged for him and Dean to room together.
This wasn’t some simple housing assignment at all—it had clearly been planned from the start to pull Dean, starting from zero, straight into training with the U16 squad!
Normal academy players got promoted step by step, working their way up gradually through each age group, slowly climbing toward the U16s.
And Dean, on his very first day in the door, had already been earmarked for the U16s!
Treatment like this, this level of confidence in someone’s talent—across the whole of Kirkby, there was nothing else quite like it.
Dean, meanwhile, was a little thrown.
He couldn’t understand why Conor looked so shocked.
It was just practicing with a ball.
Was there really any need to make such a big deal out of it?
Conor, for his part, just stared at this new child roommate in front of him—someone who looked so calm and unremarkable on the surface, but was hiding an outrageous amount of talent underneath and found himself completely at a loss for words.
A few seconds later, Conor finally shook his head hard, full of genuine admiration.
“Bloody hell.
Forget it, let’s just keep training!”
He looked at Dean.
“Once we’re done here, I’ve got to introduce you to Jon and the others.
Talent like yours deserves to be known by everyone.”
With that, the two of them threw themselves back into training.
This time, Conor completely dropped any sense of coaching a newcomer along, treating Dean despite this being his first day ever in training—entirely as a genuine teammate, holding nothing back.
Their understanding of each other only grew sharper, their passing on the pitch was flowing smoothly and cleanly, the whole session charged with real energy.
Before too long, Heighway, having finished handling the squad’s business, made his way slowly back to this training pitch, his eyes swept over the two of them at work.
He paused, watching for a moment.
Then he stepped in and asked, “How’s it going?
Settling into today’s session all right?”
Dean nodded first.
“Very well, boss.
Conor’s been training me properly.”
Conor jumped in right after.
“Boss, Dean’s not just some ordinary new kid—he’s an absolute top-tier talent!
That three-cone dynamic passing drill isn’t easy, and he had it completely nailed down in, what, ten-odd minutes?
The speed he’s picking things up at is ridiculous.”
Hearing this, a clear flicker of surprise passed through Heighway’s eyes.
He’d only arranged for Conor to train alongside Dean as a way to help him settle into the academy’s rhythm and get to know his roommate—he’d never actually expected Dean to master the drill itself.
But what he was seeing now had completely blown past anything he’d predicted.
Heighway couldn’t help letting out a short laugh and shaking his head.
This kid.
He really was turning into quite the problem.
It looked like the standard foundational training plan built for Liverpool’s academy players simply didn’t apply to Dean anymore, not in the slightest.
He needed to rework things, right away.
He needed to build Dean an entirely new, custom-tailored advanced training program, from scratch.