Liverpool’s Academy: Where are the Stars?
The benefits of top class young players coming through the ranks at a club like Liverpool are obvious.
Supporters would have a local presence in the team to relate to. Local players are likely to genuinely care about the club doing well. Plus, it would save the club millions in transfer fees.
Liverpool have had no shortage of young players coming in to the club since FSG arrived, thanks to their controversial transfer policy, but how about those players coming from Kirby?
During Jürgen Klopp’s first season, he received a lot of praise for playing the young lads from the Academy. Smith, Randall, Branagan, Ojo, Chirivella, Canos, Ward and Sinclair were all given run outs by Jürgen Klopp, and even Kevin Stewart, who was bought from Tottenham a couple of years earlier but had not been given a chance in the first team before Klopp arrived, aged 22.
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Now pre-season has been and gone, more than half of those players have been either loaned out or sold, while Branagan, Ojo and Randall are low down the pecking order in the first team squad. Other young lads of a similar age, like Origi, Moreno, Grujic, Gomez and Emre Can have cost over £40m combined and have jumped ahead of them over the last 12 months.
It is a familiar story since the turn of the century.
When the Academy was booming…..
In the 1990’s local lads McManaman, Matteo, Fowler, Marsh, Owen, Carragher and Gerrard all came through the ranks to become first team regulars. Others like Harkness Redknapp and Hutchinson, who were bought from the lower leagues in their teens, served their time in the reserves and came through to the first team. All bar Harkness and Marsh became full Internationals.
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After a decade littered with trophies in the 1980’s, despite the influx of local talent we only won two trophies from 1991-2000. This hardly promotes the value of youth over experience…..
Ever since those days, the steady stream of young lads making the grade from the Academy at Liverpool has become more like a slowly dripping tap.
A change of focus
In the noughties, Gerrard, Carragher and Owen developed into almost irreplaceable star names after being given their chance in the late 1990’s. However, Gerard Houllier was criticised for lacking faith in youngsters, and his relationship with Steve Heighway was often rumoured to be tense.
David Thompson broke through under Houllier but seemed to be let down by disciplinary issues and was soon replaced by Nick Barmby. Stephen Wright showed promise and Jon Otsemobor had a run at full back before being (literally) shot in the arse. Richie Partridge was rumoured to be the next big thing after some exciting performance for the reserves but only played a handful of times in the cups, and Houllier also gave Neil Mellor his chance, who had a couple of seasons on the edge of the team but never became a regular.
When Rafa took over, the trend continued. He is well remembered for playing lads like David Raven, Zak Whitbread, John Welsh and Darren Potter in the League and FA Cups in his first season, and continued to use Neil Mellor when Baros and Cisse were injured.
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We reached the final of the League Cup using the kids, which was promising, but crashed out of the FA Cup away to Burnley. Ironically it was a young foreign import, Djimi Traore, who knocked us out with a comical own goal, yet somehow he ended the season playing in Istanbul…..
Rafa was responsible for giving Martin Kelly his chance at Liverpool and Jay Spearing, and both eventually made over fifty appearances in defence and midfield. Martin Kelly was a tremendous athlete at full back during his time at Liverpool and despite some early errors, Rafa, Hodgson, Dalglish and Rodgers all used him. Injuries meant he never fulfilled his early promise, and he has not been a regular either at Crystal Palace since Alan Pardew took over.
Ironically an injury to Martin Kelly was a major contributor to the emergence of two more young lads under Kenny Dalglish, as Jon Flanagan and Jack Robinson were used at full back when he was Caretaker manager. Spearing was also played in about half the games in midfield for Kenny’s only full season.
Rodgers used both Robinson and Flanagan too, as well as Adam Morgan, Andre Wisdom and young Spaniard Suso, as he seemed to thrive in trying out the young Academy lads in the early days. This approach calmed down in the second part of his first season, and results improved on the back of it.
Flanagan has probably emerged as the best local lad since Steven Gerrard (calm down, I am not saying he is anywhere near Gerrard’s level). Flanno played a key role in the exciting title challenge in 2014 which resulted in him even breaking into the England squad and on standby for the World Cup. Again though, injuries over the last 12-18 months have really held back his chances, and he has been loaned out to Burnley, despite our lack of options currently at full back.
Shopping at home and abroad…….
Since the turn of the century we have signed plenty of young foreigners who have not made the grade. Houllier bought players like Le Tallec, Pongolle Sebastian Leto and Carl Medjani who arrived with big reputations but never became regulars. Benitez signed even more, his list of young Spanish imports was almost endless and while players like Damien Plessis, Emilano Insua, El Zhar and David Ngog all flirted with the first team, they never nailed down a place or totally won over supporters.
I reckon there has been more success for Liverpool while shopping for teenage players at home than abroad.
Raheem Sterling arrived from QPR in 2010 for peanuts, and left us for £49m last season. He has started this season on fire under Pep Guardiola, and like it or not, he has the pace, balance, strength and overall ability to play at the top level for years. He spent two years in the academy before Kenny Dalglish gave him a glimpse of the first team.
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Jordan Ibe and Jonjo Shelvey were also bought as teenagers from the lower leagues, and within a year they were in the first team. Both also played over 50 games for the first team before being sold on, and it is reported that Ibe even has a buy back clause. In my opinion if both of these lads had worked harder they maybe would have still been here now, but they have now dropped down to Bournemouth and Swansea/ Newcastle to get regular first team football. In Ibe and Shelvey’s case, their decline is more about attitude than ability.
The Academy has probably paid for itself for years to come when you consider fees received for Sterling, Ibe, Canos and Sinclair in the last 12 months totalling over £70m. Apart from Sterling though, no one else has come from the Academy – local lad or not – and really cemented a first team place since Steven Gerrard.
The next generation….
It is fair to say that plenty of young lads from The Academy have been given a chance since the turn of the century at Liverpool, but have not kicked on the first team. It is also fair to say that their progress has been limited by young foreign buys – due to a manager’s preference – who have not fulfilled their potential at Liverpool either.
In hindsight, we would have saved ourselves a lot of money and effort by trusting what we already had over at Kirkby, and who knows, they could have developed a local lad into a star.
Now, Branagan, Randall and Ojo are the latest Academy graduates with their chance to make the grade at Melwood and into Liverpool’s first team. Looking at our options at full back then Randall probably has the best odds of getting his chance sooner rather than later, while Ojo’s raw pace could be seen as a good alternative if Sadio Mane is missing.
These lads, as well as Joe Gomez, have seen off first team players like Joe Allen, Markovic, Flanagan Smith and Enrique this summer, to keep their place in Jürgen Klopp’s squad, so they obviously have ability. Branagan and Randall have been here since infant school, while Ojo and Gomez have been bought from the lower leagues.
Even younger players like Trent Alexander Arnold, Ejaria, Woodburn and Kent were grabbing some headlines with impressive performances in pre-season.
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Liverpool’s first team squad consistently has a turnaround of 15-20 players every summer, so when you get your chance you have to take it, or risk being moved on to another club. It would be brilliant if a local lad made the grade again at Anfield, and give other local schoolboys in the Academy someone to look up to.
We all dream of a team of Carraghers. Or Fowlers. Or Gerrards. Or Mcmanamans.
At the moment it would be nice to have just one.
Written by Simon Ward
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