Jerome Sinclair

Liverpool

Academy

Liverpool signed Sinclair as a 14-year-old from the West Bromwich Albion youth academy in the summer of 2011. The Liverpool staff compared him to Raheem Sterling. He spent most of the 2011–12 season with the Under-16s before coach Mike Marsh gave him a run of four games with the Under-18s at the end of the season. He impressed greatly in those games, though he failed to find the back of the net. On 14 July 2012, Sinclair came off the bench to score a hat-trick against Exeter City in an Under-18s pre-season friendly. In all, Sinclair netted eight goals in the six Under-18s pre-season friendly games in the run up to the 2012–13 Academy Under-18s season. He went on to score his first competitive goal for the Under-18s on 25 August 2012, hitting a brace in a 3–3 draw with Crystal Palace.

Reserves and first-team debut

While still only 15, Sinclair was called up to Rodolfo Borrell's NextGen Series side for the away match with defending champions Inter Milan in September 2012, after first-team manager Brendan Rodgers included a number of young players in his Europa League squad. He started the match and performed well, winning a penalty that Krisztián Adorján converted and going close himself on more than one occasion. Rodgers called Sinclair up to the first team for the League Cup third-round tie away to his boyhood club, West Bromwich Albion, on 26 September. At the age of 16 years and 6 days, he came off the bench in the 81st…

Sinclair has represented England at under-16 and under-17 level. He made his under-16 debut on 27 October 2011, and scored as England beat Wales 4–0 in the 2011 Victory Shield. He also scored twice in the 2012 Montaigu Tournament, earning England wins against host nation France, and Morocco. He scored his first goal for the under-17 team on 31 August 2012, opening the scoring in a 4–1 win against Turkey. He played twice in the 2013 European U17 Championship qualifying round matches in Estonia, and was selected for the elite round of qualifying but had to withdraw from the squad because of injury.

As of end of 2020–21 season

Sinclair was born in Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham, and raised in the Quinton district. He began playing organised football as a seven-year-old with Phoenix United, part of a scheme designed to use sport to keep youngsters off the streets and promote positive values. He was spotted while playing for Phoenix United, invited to a trial with West Bromwich Albion, and joined that club as a schoolboy at the age of eight. As a boy, he supported Arsenal and idolised Thierry Henry. When Sinclair joined Liverpool's youth academy, his father moved to Liverpool with him, while his mother, sister and four brothers remained at home in Birmingham. While with West Brom, he had attended Sandwell Academy; as customary with Liverpool's academy recruits, he continued his education at Rainhill High School in St Helens. He got good grades in his GCSEs, and went on to study for an A level in business studies.