Don't you think we give our young players a chance?
I certainly don't Debs. In fact I made a thread very similar to this a few years back and people got their knickers in a twist about it. They thought I was asking for 11 kids to be thrown in but that's not the point. The point I was trying to make was where we're struggling in the first team, give a young lad a run out because in reality you're not losing anything. I made the same point when Andy Carroll was here. He wasn't scoring so I wanted to see Adam Morgan give a run out. If Morgan fails to score, he's no worse than Carroll. If he does score, you may actually save yourself a bomb. I suggested any of the young lads we had on our books in the summer before Balotelli. But of course, we're not prepared to give them a go and instead waste money on players who aren't up to it.
For me we don't give the kids a go and haven't done for a very, very long time. If Jamie Carragher was in our reserves right now, I doubt he'd make it. Carra wasn't a great footballer and as a kid didn't really have anything that set him apart from anybody else. But he was playing under a manager (Roy Evans) who saw something in him and gave him a go and allowed him to develop. He didn't expect Carra to be the star of the team from day one. And then after establishing himself, somewhat, he was replaced every year under Houllier. Only problem was none of the full backs brought in were all that good (with the exception of Markus Babbel). So Carra remained in the team and eventually proved that he shouldn't be replaced and is more than good enough to rack up over 700 games for the club.
Jordan Rossiter, scores on his debut and doesn't really do anything wrong against Boro. He then isn't seen again. Gets on the bench for the next round against Swansea. Doesn't even manage that for the Bournemouth game. Kids aren't gonna develop enough at reserve/youth level. They need to be in and around the first team on a regular basis. Jordon Ibe, tearing it up at Derby, would of given us more than Markovic has. Norm Wisdom would of been a more solid choice at full back than Manquillo.
And people then say the players aren't good enough anyway because they never make it to the Prem, well that's because they fail to get the game time they need between the ages of 17 and 20. The biggest problem we have is the expectation that when a lad comes in, he has to be world class instantly. No they don't. Kids will make mistakes. That's how they learn. But they're not going to learn if they only play one game every six months in the first team, and even that not being with the first choice players. Have them on the bench, bring them on. Let them start a couple of games. That's what we're doing with the majority of the squad anyway.
But no, we give them one game. Don't see them again for months on end. And then it's "well they weren't good enough anyway, let's sell them to (take your pick of any lower league club)"
Sterling has been the exception of the rule in the last ten to fifteen years because Rodgers was forced to play Raheem because a) injuries permitted it and b) the players we had at the time were completely sh*t and c) when Raheem got given a chance, he was instantly boss. We're reaping the rewards of actually playing a young lad.
Our forwards can't score a goal and yet we still don't look at the youth teams, we change the entire team round instead. The kids can't even get a look in on the bench, we persist with Balotelli and Lambert who have proven to not be good enough.
