The Delicate Next Step

When Martin Kelly joined Huddersfield for a couple of months towards the end of the 2008–09 season, it was the perfect move. This was a team that played football the way that it should be played – ball on the ground and with a thoughtful passing game – and a manger who had confidence in the player he’d just gotten.

Unsurprisingly, it was a setting in which Kelly excelled. He played in all of Huddersfield’s games, scored a goal and proved that he more than had the talent to play at a higher level. When the call came for him to play for Liverpool he had that little bit of experience needed not to be overwhelmed by it all; the kind of experience that players don’t get playing sporadically for the sadly devalued reserves football.

Yet Kelly’s experience was an exceptional one. More common are the instances where a player is sent out on loan to gain experience but ends up spending his time on the bench, with the manager being more interested in having someone of good quality as back up. And, in truth, it is hard not to understand their lack of inclination to take any risks for someone else’s benefit.

Not that this makes it any less frustrating. The loan system provides a crucial bridge for players who aren’t getting anything from playing in the reserves but either aren’t ready for the first team or else have to compete with someone who is better than them to get there. In theory, a loan move should help them continue developing by playing at a higher standard, against tougher – at least physically – players in games in which the outcome is actually important.

In reality, far too often they end up frustrating and alienating players.

It is something that Damien Comolli admitted to recently. “I think that the step between the first team and the reserves is a challenge for every single club in Europe and the bigger the football club the more difficult it is,” he said in an interview with Leaders in Performance. “We haven’t found the right, or perfect path or the right balance and I still think we’ve still got a lot of improvements to make from 18 to 20, 21. Those 3 years are a bit touch and go in football at the moment.”

Benitez's View
His views are shared by Rafael Benítez. “It is clear that the reserve system doesn't work, the reserve league is nothing," he said back in March 2007. "You can see youngsters playing just 18 games a season, that is nothing. Certainly not enough for the development of these players. It is something that we can improve in this country. I do not want to see reserve teams with four or five senior men playing without passion. These games are for young players.”

“Between 18 and 21 years old in this country, the players do not know what to do. If they are good enough at 18 they are with the first team but they are sitting on the bench all the time.”

Benitez’s solution to this problem was a highly controversial one. “I used to be the manager of Castilla, Real Madrid's reserve side, and I had players who were 18, 19 years old playing in the Spanish Second Division. They were playing against men and we finished sixth and fourth.”

Given the attitude towards Benitez inevitably it was an opinion that was turned into a stick with which to beat him. Whilst the pride that comes from the continued existence of more than 100 professional clubs in the league and non-league system in England is understandable and it would be wrong to undermine the value of the lower leagues, the criticism focused on Benitez wanting to impose his nasty foreign views rather than on what he was saying.

No one really answered his criticism of reserve league football and how it was doing very little to help in the development of players. There was little appreciation of what he was arguing and a lot of focus on the possible solution that he was proposing.

Admittedly, as possible solutions go it wasn’t a particularly feasible one, but there are variants to it that very few clubs seem to have looked into, that of building partnerships with particular clubs.


The Value of Partnerships
There are clubs across England who share Liverpool’s ideology of playing a passing game. Some of these clubs also operate on budgets that limit their chances of development. Such clubs are the ones that should be looked at for they are a perfect fit for Liverpool who could help fill gaps in their squad safe in the knowledge that these players are going to be schooled properly.

The aim isn’t to turn them into feeder clubs but rather that of matching what both sides need; good players on one part and a place where to develop players on the other.

Encouragingly it is a solution that, perhaps, is already on Liverpool’s radar. “The loan system is managed by myself and the Academy Director. It’s crucial to the player’s development. It is managed properly and thoughtfully,” Comolli said in that same interview with Leaders in Sport. “We speak to the player after every game, the local scouts pay a visit to the player to ensure everything is fine and then we kind of have a list of clubs that we are keen to send the players to because we know the type of football they will play, the way they train, we know they will look after the player. We don’t want to be in a situation where a loan will be dictated to us, we prefer to be proactive.”

Those are heartening words that hint to an end of the haphazard nature and destination chosen for players in the past.

Increasing Value
One of the clubs on Comolli’s list could be the Belgian champions of Genk. Even though talks of setting up a link with them began before he joined the club, the channel of discussion has clearly remained as evidenced by the presence of Liverpool defender Chris Mavinga in their title winning squad.

And Mavinga is a perfect example of a kind of loaned player that is different to the ones discussed so far: those who are sent out purely so that their value can increase.

It is a system of which Manchester United are the masters. They send a player on loan, he does well, generates interest and is then sold on the back of that interest. Which in turn alerts other clubs – possibly ones higher up the league structure - that United is a great place to look for players to take on loan. And so the cycle continues.

Of course, there are players who are sent on loan because they need to be tested to see whether they can handle playing for United but the reality is that most won’t be good enough.

Liverpool have never managed to do this but reports of bids in the region of £1 million for Mavinga show just how much potential there is. In the grand scheme of things, these aren’t huge figures but if they are re-invested in the academy, they would help improve the flow of talent meaning a higher probability of players good enough for Liverpool FC coming through.

There is, of course, the risk that Mavinga is sold and then turns out to be much better than anyone had realised; that Liverpool made a mistake in letting him go. That risk can never go away but it highlights the importance of having a well managed loan system, one that allows Liverpool to learn how that player is training and how he is reacting to his new environment. Such feedback provides a better way to gauge how a player is developing and determine how far he can develop making any eventual decision a more informed one.

And that is the crucial factor. Does a player have the potential in him to play for Liverpool FC? Does he have the character and desire to work hard to achieve this? Is he up to it physically? Is he improving and learning from his mistakes? They are all questions that a club hopes to be in a better position to answer when a player is sent out on loan.

And they are the kind of questions that make a system of partnerships the ideal one for the English game because it offers the best way for players to make that delicate step between youth and senior football.

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