Bellamy is not alone. Wales and Liverpool legend Ian Rush is among a growing number impressed by Koumas’ potential, a potential that \u2013 despite his recent rise to prominence \u2013 has been obvious for a number of years.<\/p>\n
Right from the off, in fact. The surname alone brought excitement, given the talents of Lewis’ father, former Wales international Jason Koumas.<\/p>\n
“Jason was a talented, talented player,” says Danny Gabbidon, who played alongside the older Koumas for Wales.<\/p>\n
“He could do a bit of everything; technically amazing, he could look after the ball, pass, score fantastic goals. He could just make things happen.”<\/p>\n
The phrase mercurial midfielder never felt more fitting than for Koumas senior, who won 34 caps and scored 10 goals for Wales but could delight and frustrate in equal measure.<\/p>\n
“He could be a bit lazy at times,” chuckles Gabbidon when considering a player who was often nonchalance personified.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Tranmere Rovers, West Bromwich Albion, Cardiff City and Wigan Athletic fans will all smile at the highlight-reel memories, while having a nagging feeling of what might have been had Koumas had the tenacity to match his talent.<\/p>\n
Yet it seems Lewis has some of the qualities his father may have lacked.<\/p>\n
“You wouldn’t have seen Jason running around like Lewis the other night [for Liverpool against Tottenham] ,” says Gabbidon. <\/p>\n
“I kept a close eye on him because I’ve felt his best position is a striker and I’ve been keen to see him down the middle.<\/p>\n
“To get the chance at a club like Liverpool shows what the manager thinks of him. But it’s not just his talent, it’s the appetite.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bellamy is not alone. Wales and Liverpool legend Ian Rush is among a growing number impressed by Koumas’…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-906481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}