Liverpool FC Forum

by **bigmick** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:28 pm

I was thinking about this the other day. You get a new manager in, and he has his own ideas about youth development. Once he's gone, it all changes etc etc. The manager stands or falls by the results of the first team, and frankly whether or not some 13 year old kid is going to develop into an International footballer by the time he's in his early 20's is 99 times out of 100 irrelevant to the manager as he'll be gone by then anyway.

It strikes me that a club like Liverpool really ought to have it's own scouting set-up, coaching set up and support network for kids which is completely independant of who is the manager of the first team. Equally, a club rich in tradition within a relatively working class area ought to have a moral duty to the community to do it's upmost to develop a smattering of local kids as well.

I'm effectively saying that the manager of the first team shouldn't be in charge of recruitment for the youngsters, they should have their own budget for aquisitions and their own programme for player development. It's kind of like we have a long term project (which all youngsters are) but we macro manage it with changes in the structure all the time.

It then follows of course that the manager undertakes to use wherever possible the kids as back up for the first team. it just seems crazy to me that we spend the time, money, effort and energy recruiting the likes of Nemeth from Hungary, develop him for three years or so and then spend 1.5 million quid bringing in Egg Nog to be in front of him. the likelyhood is neither are good enough, but the system and structure we currently have simply isn't cutting it.

Time for a Dario gradi/Steve Hieghway figure to be given a ten year contract and a budget I reckon.

by **andy_g** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:36 pm

i don't know too much about this, admittedly, but its obvious even to me that there is no functioning connection between the main squad and the reserves / youth set up. we seem to have a number of very talented young players already that aren't getting a sniff of first team action, not even making the bench like many of us imagined they would with this season's new maxi-bench. something needs to be about that for starters.

as far as the youth policy goes in general what we are all crying out for is news of this 15 or 16 year old kid from tuebrook/huyton/speke or wherever that everyone just knows is going to be the next steven gerrard. oh yeah, and all his mates as well that have also come of the liverpool streets and are getting the best possible support to get them close to the main squad. not the situation where they are wondering when, not if, some 15 year old form hungary will be bought for a million, get more playing time in the ressies than them, and still not have a chance of breaking through.

by **Cool Hand Luke** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:38 pm

The manager and Chief Executive should jointly appoint someone to run youth development.

The head of youth development should indeed have his own budget and a limit on how many players he can have registered on contracts.

The manager of the first team squad should also have his own budget and a limit on how many first team squad players we have on our books (I believe Mourinho kept a limit of 24 players and I think Fergie also has a limit of some sort).

The problem is that these two men need to have an excellent relationship and understanding otherwise it is all wasted.

by **tubby** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:53 pm

We should send in some Spys to Arsenals camp as they seem to know how to do it pretty well.

by **Bam** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:53 pm

I think thats a b.loody good idea Mick.

Disclaimer - erh ....

by **puroresu** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:03 am

Is Barcelona's independent? There system seems to always churn out quality regardless who the Manager is?

by **LFC2007** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:20 am

If we're talking kids who are 15+, then the manager has to have an input (particularly at a club like ours where the manager is expected to devise a long-term plan). It's at around that age that a youngster is developed fully in terms of technical ability, and for that reason you should have an enhanced idea as to whether they have a future in the game. At that point, the influence of the manager, but more so his team of scouts should kick in - i.e whether they choose to recruit from abroad or promote players from the academy. They are best placed to ensure that their strategy falls in line with their aims and objectives. That is to find a player, or group of players of a certain style/character/whatever else for a certain type of role. Below the age of 15 or so, the manager's input should be minimal and for a couple of reasons. One is that there is a large pool of youngsters to scout and that's a specialist task in itself - too much for the manager to be heavily involved in (and which he isn't). Two is that youngsters of < 15 will be at the stage where they're still developing basic footballing attributes i.e. technique, and so based on the little evidence the manager would have at hand, his insight into their potential future worth to the first team would be very limited.

I'm not so sure the problem lies with bringing through too many foreign youngsters in the 15+ age group and not enough local ones. I don't think Rafa or his network of scouts favour foreign players without good reason. I think they genuinely believe there is a lack of quality at a local level, and that nationally it's very competitive (which it is), so they've turned abroad. I think they've probably just signed too many players who aren't up to standard at the end of the day (or we may have to wait before anything comes of the latest batch), so in respect of our recruitment polict for the 15+ age group it may not be a systemic problem, but rather poor judgement by those charged with finding the right players.

I don't think Rafa has a great influence over the younger groups of players, i.e. 9-15. Elias is head of recruitment on that front IIRC, and Hamberg the head of technical development i.e. training. It remains to be seen whether or not they're able to scout and nurture the talent good enough to come through to the first team, so I can't see how it would be fair to criticise them at present. Maybe we have lost Heighway's local knowledge, or maybe there's a lack of quality across the board, or maybe the network isn't picking them up. I think there is a general lack of quality across the board, but in spite of this problem, we still should have done a lot better. I also think that whilst a talent on Gerrard's level will always come through the system irrespective of how many players you put in front of him, a player like Carragher is one that could get away because his type are less obvious to spot yet are just as capable of being a huge asset to the team.

by **Sabre** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:26 am

I don't think Rafa has a great influence over the younger groups of players, i.e. 9-15. Elias is head of recruitment on that front IIRC, and Hamberg the head of technical development i.e. training.

Yes, when they came to Antiguoko (Alonso's former club) they came Elias, and a guy who's surname was Parry (his son? I ask). Elias left a card in which it said that was his charge at the club. The contacts were in order to reach an agreement of feeder club, but never happened oficially. They keep scouting the zone, though.

I was told by Antiguoko guys (I'm a mates of one of the staff) that in the next meeting I might join them as an interpreter (imagine how good is their english

and how excited I was back then, I think I only told that to Bad Bob) but that contacts never formalised.

All I can say is that Liverpool are working hard scouting in our zone by the looks of it.

To be honest, this would be one of the things that in Rafa's project I've been a bit dissapointed. In 4 of 5 years I would have liked to see a youngster coming from the ranks (and becoming at least a regular sub) but that hasn't happened.

by **LFC2007** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:33 am

Sabre wrote:Yes, when they came to Antiguoko (Alonso's former club) they came Elias, and a guy who's surname was Parry (his son? I ask). Elias left a card in which it said that was his charge at the club.

When was this?

by **Sabre** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:35 am

1 year and a half, 2 years tops?

Definitely after Bad Bob came here because I remember I hurried to tell him the news. (If it's important I'll ask the guys, let me know). Hold on. I remember now, it was a month before the CL final we lost against Milan (2007). I was invited to watch the game in the Antiguoko offices and I posted a pic here in newkit.

It strikes me that a club like Liverpool really ought to have it's own scouting set-up, coaching set up and support network for kids which is completely independant of who is the manager of the first team. Equally, a club rich in tradition within a relatively working class area ought to have a moral duty to the community to do it's upmost to develop a smattering of local kids as well.

Oh, I forgot to mention, this paragraph of Bigmick is spot on and I agree, as much as I'm pro Rafa. Youngsters world is a different world.

by **NANNY RED** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 1:07 am

This is part of an article i posted in another thread

Worrying as far as im concerned

Figures paint worrying picture of Liverpool's Kirkby Academy
Nov 28 2008 by Tony Barrett, Liverpool Echo

EVERTON 6 Liverpool 0 is not a scoreline anyone at Anfield would ever like to see.

Nor is Man United 2 Liverpool 0. Or Man City 4 Liverpool 0. Or Blackburn 2 Liverpool 0. And – as if those weren’t bad enough – how about a couple of 1-0 defeats to Bolton and Wigan?

These aren’t results from this or any other season. But, in a way, what these scores represent is something much worse –each denotes the number of Academy graduates currently at each north west club who have made at least a single league appearance.

Liverpool fans cannot even claim Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher – both made their first team debuts before the Academy in Kirkby had even opened its doors.

All Liverpool’s Academy graduates can boast between them is a single substitute’s appearance in this season’s Carling Cup when former Youth Cup winning captain Stephen Darby came on for the injured Philipp Degen in the 4-2 defeat at Spurs with just six minutes left on the clock.

It is a far cry from what was expected of the Academy when it opened its doors for the first time a decade ago. Back then, Liverpool were basking in the glow of a golden generation of local youngsters who had all made their way through the ranks and graduated into the first team from the club’s school of excellence.

Among those who had come through were Gerrard, Carragher, Steve McManaman, Dominic Matteo, Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler. All six made their full debuts in the 1990s and at that time it seemed as if the production line would just keep on rolling, churning out talented young player after talented young player.

But all of a sudden it ground to a halt. The club may have ploughed an initial £10m into its brand new Academy but even that outlay and the many millions more that have been invested in it since has failed to result in a commensurate return on its investment.

Success stories are few and far between. Stephen Warnock is probably the best known Academy graduate having made 40 league appearances for Liverpool and the £1.5m his transfer to Blackburn brought into the club was certainly a decent fee for a player who had cost nothing.

In retrospect, there are those who argue that Liverpool should have kept the Ormskirk-born defender, particularly as Warnock has impressed at Blackburn at a time when left back has become something of a problem position for Rafa Benitez.

Danny Guthrie is another who staked his claim only to find his chances of making a long lasting impact on the first team thwarted by the presence of Gerrard, Javier Mascherano, Xabi Alonso and, more controversially, Lucas.

Newcastle paid £2.5m for his services in the summer, meaning Guthrie’s departure brought in more than half of the £4.8m Liverpool have recouped from the sale of Academy players over the last decade.

But of the 13 other homegrown players who have been sold after making it onto the fringes of Liverpool’s squad you would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to mount a convincing case for any of their services being retained.

The fact that every single one of this baker’s dozen are plying their trade outside the Premier League at clubs like Yeovil Town, Preston, Burton Albion, Millwall, Chester City and Leigh Genesis tells its own story. Not a single player who has been released after coming through the Academy has come back to haunt the club and this in itself is an indication of the failings at youth level.

Conversely, there are a couple of hugely promising teenagers who spent time at the Academy but whose services were not retained who could turn out to be the ones that got away.

Jack Rodwell and Jose Baxter supported Liverpool but ended up at Everton where both have progressed well enough to feature in David Moyes’ squad.

That’s the way it goes in youth football, of course and in the past Liverpool were the beneficiaries of such vagaries with the likes of McManaman, Fowler, Owen and Carragher choosing to follow their heads, not their hearts when it came to joining a club.

But with UEFA decreeing Champions League clubs must have at least four homegrown players on squad lists, Liverpool are under pressure to ensure no more quality local youngsters slip the net.

The biggest crying shame of all this is that Liverpool would have been brought to their knees over the last 20 years had it not been for the input of local players. First it was Fowler and McManaman carrying the team through the mid-90s, then Michael Owen burst onto the scene scoring bucketloads of goals and giving the club new hope and raised expectations.

Next up, Gerrard and Carragher became the personification of the “Scouse heartbeat” which Gerard Houllier always claimed was so vital at Anfield.

Think of Liverpool’s greatest successes of recent times and local players were at their core. The 2006 FA Cup, the 2005 Champions League, the 2003 League Cup, the treble in 2001 and the 1995 League Cup were all inspired by homegrown talent.

For the time being, though, it appears that there is no-one from the Merseyside area who is ready to make such an impact and that needs to change.

When Steve Heighway resigned as Academy chief in June 2007, Liverpool went down the route of appointing a foreign technical manager to oversee the development of their young players. Rick Parry’s choice was Piet Hamberg but with the Dutchman’s two year contract expiring next summer there is little sign of him being offered a new one and it could be Liverpool will soon be looking for another new man to head up their youth system.

It is too easy to point the finger at individuals as to why theAcademy is not living up to its mission statement, bringing “young stars of the future through to first team places and beyond” but the blame game is one reason why such failure currently seems irreversible.

What is needed is a root and branch review of the last 10 years with the club asking itself why the Academy is not achieving what it set to.

NORTH WEST Premier League clubs whose current squads contain Academy graduates with at least one league appearance to their name

LIVERPOOL

None

EVERTON

Jack Rodwell

Jose Baxter

Leon Osman

James Vaughan

Tony Hibbert

Victor Anichebe

MANCHESTER CITY

Micah Richards

Nedum Onuoha

Michael Johnson

Daniel Sturridge

MANCHESTER UTD

Danny Welbeck

Jonny Evans

BLACKBURN

Keith Treacy

Matt Derbyshire

BOLTON

Joey O'Brien

WIGAN

Luke Ashworth

tonybarrett@liverpoolecho.co.uk

by **bigmick** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 1:09 am

The point about "players like Carragher" is a really good one. At some stage I think we're probably going to have to accept that perhaps some of the English kids aren't "technically" as good as some of their foreign counterparts, but they make up for it in other areas. I'm more concerend though with the idea that you scout the World for talent., coach them, nurture them and develop them and then as they're turning 20 (in the case of Nemeth) buy Egg Nog to put in front of them.

It says two things to me. One is that Nemeth isn't upto it if Egg Nog is a better player than him. Two is that we aren't serious about developing talent, because the effect such a move would have on the morale of the kids must be absolutely devastating. The whole thing at the moment is a farce, you'd have had more success picking potential youngsters by simply turning up at the under 16 World Cup and chucking some cash at the kids who looked decent. You certainly couldn't have done any worse thats for sure, and although I'm not blaming the manager for it, the system is currently bankrupt.

I'd like to see someone given responsibility for the under 18's, a long-term contract and a budget. His brief should be to produce players which are going to be good enough for the first team squad. We should then speak to the manager, and work towards a squad of 24 players for the first team, which within two seasons has to include at least four players from the acadamy. If the manager of the first team has the constant option of going out and spending a few million quid on stop-gaps then that's exactly what he will do, and in fairness has done. If on the other hand he himself has a vested interest in ensuring that those four players are ship shape and ready to rock, then we may start to get somewhere.

by **Sabre** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 1:25 am

The point about "players like Carragher" is a really good one. At some stage I think we're probably going to have to accept that perhaps some of the English kids aren't "technically" as good as some of their foreign counterparts, but they make up for it in other areas. I'm more concerend though with the idea that you scout the World for talent., coach them, nurture them and develop them and then as they're turning 20 (in the case of Nemeth) buy Egg Nog to put in front of them.

I have to agree again.

So far, we haven't only wasted time waiting for players that never came. We also have spent a lot of money in the process. Trips, paying houses to the young lads, sometimes even finding a job to the parents.

I don't think it's a good idea to target clubs like Antiguoko (Arteta, Alonso) (1). They don't have a professional team, only players until 16, 17. In the words of one their staff at that age their football isn't developed. It's a gamble.

I wonder, what's the point in paying a house to a basque lad like San Jose, blocking the career of a Liverpool young player, when you can wait a couple of years in order the basque player develops and you get the player for a very modest sum? I know the money of ALonso wasn't that modest, but Alonso was an international already when Liverpool knocked at the door I'm talking about buying him a bit earlier: Had the Liverpool staff have listened to Toshack, who was the one who recovered Alonso from a loan in Segunda, Liverpool would have Alonso much cheaper than they had.

(1) And I have changed my mind on this, because my first reaction when I knew the move was that it might be a brilliant idea.

by **NANNY RED** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 1:31 am

For me we should be looking closer to home for these kids
The big thing for me here is no scouse lads seem to be coming through . I mean since i can remember in all the years ive been going the game we have always had a local lads in the first team. Ok i know Steven Darby is on the fringe but will he actualy make it . i think hes good enough but im not the boss. Surely to god theres kids from Liverpool who are good enough. You see other teams with Scouse kids in there academys or in thr ressies . through so why did they slip through our net. Im sure theres a lad on Man utds books whose a scouser , why have they got him an we havnt. if you see what i mean.

Once Carra an Gerrard go what then . I dread the day that we dont have a local lad in the team tbh

by **account deleted by request** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 1:32 am

TBH Mick thats how the Academy is run, totally independent of Rafa. The problem is Rafa isn't and wasn't happy with that situation and to an extent has decided if he can't run the academy he will buy young players and let them train at Melwood, where he has control.

Unfortunately this has meant that young players arn't graduating from the Academy, and are having to be moved on to other clubs, while even the poorer players who Rafa has brought in are given numerous chances in the reserves.

There is a lot of conflict at the moment, Rafa doesn't get on with the coaches that Parry has brought in. The coaches are upset that players they are recommending to be promoted to the reserves arn't being given the chance, and at the end of the day its the young kids that are suffering because of this. The whole setup seems to be split into two at the moment, with a lot of ill feeling all round.

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