Also primarily flawed because none of these 'young' players are youth products, therefore have no attachment or inherent desire for the club, which (A) makes them likely to be damp squibs or (B) once they become good, they will all separately go to clubs that are bigger than us at the moment.
There's no hint of loyalty amongst them - many would just see Liverpool as a step up to something else. Genuinely brilliant youth products would have the loyalty to stay with us and push us on the the next level, but as we've seen, this club's attitude towards the Academy absolutely stinks - and has done for the last 16 years. That is why, for all the mismanagement over the years, we wouldn't be in half the mess if we had a prosperous academy like the very very best.
I'm sorry mate I don't agree. Yes the Academy was neglected up until Rafa arrived but he realised the benefits of having a good youth system and put measures in place to change that. However it takes time to get the players ready as you can't suddenly make 1st team players until they've been brought into the system. Brendan has continued Rafa's work by bringing in coaches who work the same as he does and know what he wants from the Academy.
We have already started to see a trickle of them with Shelvey, Flanno, Wisdom, Raheem, Ibe, Suso, Kelly, Coady, Robinson, Spearing and Texeira. That's not a bad return but it's taken 7 or 8 years to get them there. Before you jump on me, yes I am aware not all of them are local and not all of them are playing for us but they've still made a career as pro footballers at a high level and that's all you can ask of a successful Academy.
We now have a fantastic group of players at u21's and even better ones at u18's but most of them seem to be midfielders, we have very few, if any, excellent strikers and the same with CB's although we have a few very good full backs. It's these areas that need to be filled within the squad as most of the kids just aren't ready for 1st team football yet. Why do you think the likes of Ilori, Wisdom, Texeira and Ibe are all out on loan? It's not because they're not wanted, like some seem to think, it's to get them ready to play, whether that's ready to play for us or not.
It's a very slow process, with no guarentees of success but if we start producing high quality youth players from within the Academy more will want to come at a younger age, giving us an even better chance of it being successful.
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