Not bad for a fall back option. When Paco Herrera chose to return to Spain, the job of managing Liverpool’s reserve side was earmarked for Gary McAllister, with Rafael Benitez eager to have someone who had played for the club to fill that role.

Personal reasons forced the Scot to turn the offer down and the club into looking for someone else to take on the role. It was unlikely, however, that any such search would have involved looking at the coaching staff at Goodison yet it was from there that Benitez ultimately found his man.

Gary Ablett was one of the few men to have played for the two Merseyside clubs. A Liverpool youth product who won the double with Kenny Dalglish, he was sold to Everton by Graeme Souness and went on to play the best football of his career in blue. Once his playing career had came to an end, he took up coaching with Everton’s youth teams making a name for being highly ambitious.

That ambition came to the fore in the summer of 2006 when he applied for the Liverpool reserves’ job. A three hour long interview with Benitez later – one which he spent answering a question after another on how he would react in different tactical situations – and Ablett was given the job.

It was quite a surprising choice not only because of Ablett’s Evertonian background but also because as a player he had never been the most popular with the fans.

Two years down the line, however, and it is starting to look like an inspired choice. That the reserves have done so well is largely down to the number of talented players that have been added to the team yet Ablett has played a crucial role in moulding those individuals into an effective side.

Given that most of them were unlikely to talk much English when they came in, it wasn’t that straightforward a task. Indeed, the ease with which they’ve all started to express their potential – and the way in which the younger players like Daniel Pacheco and Gerardo Bruna have been slowly eased into the side with both being more effective each time they play - bears testament to Ablett’s man-management abilities.

There is more that that. Tactically, the side is always shaped well regardless of who is playing and on the rare occasions in which they found themselves under pressure he has shown to be quite adept at switching players round to rectify the situation.

Ablett himself has been quite happy to deflect the plaudits on to his players whilst claiming that ultimately the aim is to get as many of the players in the first team as possible rather than at winning games. Inwardly, however, he’ll be quite proud of his achievements and justifiably so.

And, who knows, perhaps he’s thinking of putting himself forward to fill the void left by another Paco – Ayesteran – as Benitez’s assistant manager.