Liverpool FC Forum

[Paul C]

I think we should be producing and playing more youngsters, over the past couple of years we've only produced a few players that have played in the 1st team like John Welsh, Richie Partridge, Neil Mellor and John Otsemobor but non of them have played a decent amount of games.

Hopefully Beni will start to sow the seeds and get some 1st team youngsters in, plus I hope Zak Whitbread gets a few games cos the lad looks pretty good 

Sorry rant over, it just got my back up seeing the scum and Arsenal playing some good youngsters when were has talent too but it never gets a chance.

[supersub]

It's possible the younger lads will be getting more of a game this season,perhaps in the league cup competition.

[gerrard_steven]

u 4got to mention stephen warnock he looks a very good played at left mid and if kewell dont pull is w8 expect rafa to give him a chance afterall he played in all the pre season friendlies in the USA

[stmichael]

i think the whole concept of academies is misunderstood in this country. people think that by opening up a coaching school and calling it "an academy" that great players will just be churned out. at the end of the day if the young players from the academy were good enough then teams wouldn't have to look abroad for their talent. it's still extremely unlikely that many of our will get much of a look in this season.

i advocate a rule in the future which says that all premiership teams should field at least 1 player who have come through their academy.

[Starbridge42]

Its a good idea but some clubs, particularly weaker clubs have, with respect, really ****** acadamies.  If they did produce youngsters of note then chances are they'd be snapped up by a bigger club.  It would work but then you'd need some way to stop smaller clubs having all their decent academy players taken away.

[stmichael]

The disappointing thing is the youngsters haven't been really been given a look in. Neither are most of them farmed out for loan. Players like Mellor, Semi didn't benefit from their loan stints while the likes of John Welsh and Whitbread haven't played regular football in lower flights. I'm not saying going on loan to Championship clubs is definitely better but it is somewhat different from reserve team football. Besides, there's at least 46 league games, whereas the reserve league has less than 30 games. Moreover, the football played is competitive and the calibre of some lower division players are good too. I don't think our academy kids are poorer than the likes of Arsenal's or Man Ure's. They just have more playing opportunties (at club/on loan), esp. since they have feeder clubs.

Hopefully, that will change under Benitez.  As I've mentioned before, Warnock is on top of my list of youngsters breaking into the 1st team. Welsh is still 2nd on my list despite not impressing in friendlies and not making the tour squad. Semi is 3rd (cos' we've got quite a couple of right backs at the moment) while Whitbread is 4th. Potter and Foy are, IMO, dark horses for the breakthrough.