It isn't similar at all, Ibe came as a 16 year old and was playing in the under 18's and Sterling came as a 15 year old and played in the youth team at the time so both were pretty much developed through the clubs system.
No mate, I mean "similar" in the sense that both players were much like Gomez, pretty much unknown quantities. Whilst I get 100% peoples frustrations with the owners and their reluctance to regularly buy ready made stars for the first team, I do think it is important that until they sell up the club continues to invest in the future. Yes for sure for every Sterling there are ten Pacheco's or Luis Alberto's, but when one does come through it makes the punts worth it.
Equally it only seems sensible to me that while we do actually have a manager who is committed to giving young players an opportunity and developing them, that we feed him some raw material. Had we had many other managers in charge for instance I'd be very surprised if the likes of Sterling or Ibe would have broken through as they have. Time and again Brendan has shown himself ready and willing to take a chance on a kid, and although many don't want him to continue as manager I wouldn't be surprised if he does keep his job if we don't start to see more of the better youngsters opting for Anfield over some other clubs.
As I said before, you only have to look at the ages of the players of the other big clubs to see the difference. No doubt some clever statistical person with lots of spare time on their hands will put up an "average age" league tale or something. That won't demonstrate it properly obviously, but it's fairly clear that boss does want to give the young guys a go. That said, if Gomez ISN'T going to get into the team very often, then in the short term it makes perfect sense to loan him out somehwere where he can get game time. I think he's only ever played 21 games or something daft.
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