Are Liverpool Killing Off the Academy?
7Monday, September 22, 2008 by Paul Grech
Liverpool’s reserves lost in the league for the first time in over a year last week, a record that brings back happy memories of an era where the second string used to routinely win the Pontins League under the guidance of future first team manager Roy Evans.
The strategy back then was also very similar tot e one that Rafael Benitez has been adopting even if the range of nationalities has been widened drastically. Players 
with potential are brought in with the aim of allowing them to develop within the club. Back then it was the likes of Ian Rush, Steve Nicol, Alan Hasen, Ronnie Whelan and Gary Gillespie, now it is Daniel Pacheco, Damien Plessis, Krisitan Nemeth, Dean Bouzanis, Nabil El Zhar and Mikel San Jose.
There is, however, one big difference: Beniez hasn’t been strengthening the reserves as much as he has been stacking them. A run down through the reserves squad reveals that there are more than 25 players available for Gary Ablett to chose from and that’s without including out of favour first teamers like Jermaine Pennant who made an appearance last week.
It is an anomalous situation. On the face of it, there is little wrong with such an approach. Most of the players have cost very little so the risk is minimal and if even one player become a first team regular then the club would have saved millions. And, even if they don’t , a good number of them have already built such a reputation that were they to be sold they would make a profit.
All of which adds to the situation’s attractiveness.
Yet for all those plus points, it is hard to escape the feeling that things have been overdone. Most of the players are in the 17 to 20 age bracket, a crucial period for one’s development. Playing regularly is critical to keep on improving yet this is impossible particularly with the limited game numbers of the current league structure.
And that’s only half the problem. With so many players jostling for playing time, how can Ablett even contemplate looking at how the kids at the academy are doing? How can the likes of Nathan Ecclestone (pictured), David Amoo, Marvin Pourie and Michael Scott – all players who need to step up a level to continue their development – progress if there are so many ahead of them?
Just as it was under Gerard Houllier, the impression is that the Academy is being treated like a foreign body not as part of the whole structure through which players can progress. Benitez’s recent admission that he intends to restructure the academy is as close to confirmation of that as you are likely to get.
Does this imply that Benitez would willingly block the progress of players because they are coming from the Academy? Of course not yet, having brought in so many players, the message that he is putting across is that there isn’t any room in his set-up for them.
Category Academy, Nathan Eccleston, Rafael Benitez, Reserves
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Rafa's idea is to have a strong squad at all levels of the club. There is the first team, reserves, U18, U16 and down. As U18 and reserve level they analyse the quality of the local players, weed out the ones they don't think will make it and top up with foreign talent to lift the level up.
The question is will Stephen Darby and Jay Spearing have a better chance of making the first team if they are competing and training every day with the likes of Pachecho, Nemeth and Plessis or with the lower quality players we have already shipped out?
None of our reserves over the last 10 years (since Carragher, Gerrard Owen & Fowler) have been good enough for the first team at least not if we consider we are competing with Man Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal and not Portsmouth, West Ham and the likes.
I think Rafa will retain the best players at each level and remove the bottom 50% every couple of years to make room for the younger players beneath them who deserve to progress.
The reserves had their best season for longer than I can remember last year so we should be praising Rafa and him not criticising him.
By developing an Anfield academy system pioneered by an Ajax system that produced Davids.Kluivert.Overmarrs and the De Boers as well as many others, then loaning them out to Championship clubs like Crewe and Preston to bring them up to LFC first team standard (if they make it) through competitive games whilst learning a style of play similar style to Rafa's first team........There's nothing wrong with Rafa's approach. It's far more sensible than just academy game experience which never seen any youngster progress to first team standard since Owen and Gerrard.As much as we liked Steve Heighway and the job he did, Our Academy and well as many others in the 90's and now wasn't producing Premiership standard players.
I am very suprised with this article. Look at the academy's success since the arrival of Benitez. The Academy was killed off bu Houllier more like. Although getting rid of Heighway was a mistake in some ways it was needed. Nothing had come through the academy since Gerrard in terms of establishing theirselves in the first team over a long period.
2 Youth Cups, the North West Reserve and National reserve titles gained during this period has bene nothing short of brilliant. The fact we need to bridge the gap between reserve and 1st team, blooding youngsters that are ready to step up. Will we see this hopefully tomorrow nite against Crewe.
i understand where the article is coming from but i have to disagree with a few points. basically if the kids were good enough they wouldn't have to bring so many in. it's up to them to them to prove that they can make it and if they cannot show that week in and week out then they can have no complaints about not starting or being shipped out. more kids means more competition, where it gets tricky is first team appearences but as shown by plessis, insua and el zhar if you show what you can do you will get the chances
@ Anonymous: My criticism isn't for having a strong reserves squad but rather because by having so many players in that squad there is no way that the academy lads can progress.
@Eddie: Again, no problem with building on what comes out of the academy by signing more players for the reserves. But when the reserves get so big that they need a reserves team of their own, that for me is a sign of a problem.
@ Liddell-pool: I'm a big fan of Rafa but the two Youth Cup successes had very little to do with him. More importantly then that, it is how many players make it to the top from those teams that really matters. Hopefully we'll see a couple of them against Crewe but, from what I'm hearing, it is the foreign players that he has brought in who will get a game. Again, nothing wrong with that.
@ Simba: what you mention is my biggest problem. Let me give you an example. Nathan Ecclestone is an England U18 international and widely considered to be a very good player. He has done well at academy level and scored in his only game with the reserves last season. By all accounts, he needs to start playing at a higher level and is good enough to do so. Yet how can Ablett give him a game when he has Jordy Brouwer, Vitor Flora, Adras Simon, Daniel Pacheco and Kristian Nemeth, not to mention David N'Gog who played last week?
Same goes for Michael Scott who you would think would be Stephen Darby's back up in the reserves. Instead Emanuel Mendy was brought in during the summer meaning that it is now far more difficult for Scott.
good points, but its good rather then bad that ecclestone has to fight his way into the team. it will rasie his level, perhaps more then pllaying for the reserves will.
an example of this is a comparison between danny guthrie and jay spearing. danny guthrie is a good player (in spite of his monstrous tackle last week) and deservedly now plays for newcastle week in week out, at the age of 21.
jay spearing is better because of the new system, IMO. hes a much more busy player, much quicker, he can set the tempo and he can score goals. because he is keeping on top of his game that other midfielders arent getting a look in. the system therefore not only exposes the attitudes of those in the youth system but also encourages those above not to stop improving.
with this academy, there is more chance of getting the players through, because of their attitude and the competition, then there was before the restructuring. this way, either the players we make make millions, or even better they get into the first team and become legends (hope fully)
The liverpool are top level team. If we want to be compared with the Real madrids, Barcelonas, inters, juves, milans, mancs, arsenals, chelseas etc. We need to get the best players. As we cant afford to buy them when they have shown they have talent i.e. Alves, simao, etc. We need to buy them for less when we can see their potential and hopefully a few will progress.
People want more players from liverpool, then england, then Uk and then rest of the world. The problem is we need players who have a god given gift to be able to play for us. If they have it they have to compete with others to show it and prove they are worthy of playing for the 1st team.
How many U18 have played for the first team, not many, and This will continue. The majority of palyers from the academy will not make it to reserve team. The same will be said of reserve team making it to the first team. But we will make a profit, as well as beef up the squad, which is what the top teams do.
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