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23 Jan 2015 13:08:36
I wanted to reply to something mentioned yesterday with a new thread.

Somebody mentioned that Rodgers is willing to give youth a chance because he has bought younger players.

That is not the same as giving youth a chance in my opinion though.

He is essentially waiting for another teams youth academy to throw up a diamond in the rough, and then buying them for an inflated price (Alberto £7m, Markovic £20m, Can £10m, Ilori £8m, Moreno £12m, Allen £15m, Yesil £2m, Borini £10m etc).

I have no problem with this if Rodgers had a better eye for talent. The fact is though out of those 8 players listed, only 3/4 look likely to make it here. That is a 50% success rate (at best) and roughly £32-42m wasted depending on whether or not Borini steps up with a few more chances.

Now let's looks at giving youth acadmey players a chance under Rodger. Flanagan, Sterling, Kelly, Wisdom and Suso have been handed sustained runs in the team under him. Flanagan took it with both hands and nailed himself into Rodgers plans. Likewise with Sterling. Wisdom was inconsistent but still showed promise and will either come back from loan and make it or be sold for a profit, Kelly was never fit for long enough to perform and was sold for a profit, and Suso despite showing ability probably needed more perseverance as he didn't hit the ground running but still could've been sold for a profit if we hadn't been so stubborn. Basically, 2 out of 5 have taken the chances. This has cost us a grand total of £500k spent to bring in Sterling whilst he was still a youth player at QPR. So a 40% success rate with no money wasted on transfer fees.

My point being, buying ready made younger players will usually have a higher success rate than giving youth acadmey players a chance, but when it goes wrong it costs the club money; money we cannot afford to keep wasting on failed youth.

Giving youth academy players a chance poses no financial risks and if they flop, we'll still get some money for them (Spearing and Kelly were sold for small profits). Ed001 also claims that when an academy prospect breaks into the team it gives everyone at the club a lift and spurs on the senior players to keep their places. It is literally, Win, Win, Win.

So yes, Rodgers is willing to play U23's but he isn't willing to take a risk on relatively unproven academy players when he can burn the owners money signing other clubs star academy prospects. As I said yesterday, the club cannot afford to sustain that. £40m is a hell of a lot of money to lose across 3 seasons when your revenue is only averaging about 6 times that much money.

There is always the risk that young players will fail to step up. However by using our own rather than buying them from other clubs, we eliminate the financial risk and only stand to make a profit! Look at Tottenham selling Naughton, Livermore etc and making small profits on players who failed to make it there. United with Cleverley, Welbeck etc.

When you utilise your academy you will likely have a lower success rate than buying talents in. I accept that. I would put the percentage who fail at about 75-80% to be honest. Those failures cost nothing though and in some cases will even give us a small profit.

We won't make anything on Ilori (CB), Borini (ST), Yesil (ST), Alberto (CAM) and Allen (CM) when they're sold. All will be sold for less than we paid for them when we could've just given Sama (CB), Morgan (ST), Ngoo (ST), Adorjan (CAM) and Coady (CM) more chances and if they had flopped (which they probably would've) we'd have at least had some profit to show for it.

It's the same with loans too. We loaned in Cissokho and loaned out Robinson, loaned in Moses and left Ibe in the reserves. Then this season we loaned in Manquillo and loaned out Wisdom. Why? Just give our own players a chance and then if they fail we still make a small profit rather than lose a loan fee and years wages for nothing.

We should be signing mainly proven players aged 23-27 with the occasional U23 when the scouts spot a gem, and then using our academy to full advantage. Not kicking the acadmey in the teeth by constantly raiding other clubs for their academy graduates.

To conclude, when myself and others say we want Rodgers to use youth more, we don't mean u23's, we mean our actual youth team! It is the only finacially risk free way to bring top players into your team. You can't even say "yeah but the academy costs money to run" because the academy is not a choice, it is a requirement! We have to run an academy by FA rules regardless, so we might as well try and use it to make some stars and make some money.

Buying stars might be a fast track and easy way to fill the squad with young talent, but it is too much of a financial strain for a club like Liverpool with a relatively small revenue. We simply cannot afford to continue buying other clubs top talents. We need to use our own and then the money we make selling those who fall short can be added to the kitty to sign top players with experience.

Nobody on here calling for the academy to be used expects them all to make the grade and break into the team. It is unrealistic to think that. But the fact is, some players will and they will not cost a penny unlike Markovic and Moreno etc. You have to be brave to give academy players a chance, but you have to be foolish to think you will get away with wasting your bosses money year after year.

Rodgers needs to do himself a favour and use his own academy far more often and then maybe he'll uncover some real gems for nothing and save his job.

Agree12 Disagree13

Have to agree Adam.

This has obviously got your back up. Hence the numerous essays on the matter.

Not time for another name change yet!! 😀 after all the abuse. Have to agree with most of your posts apart from Allen being over average.

Pretty much stated the obvious there, could have been written on two paragraphs tops lol

Just one quick question.

Please name me the title challenging clubs that are doing this?

And please don't say Utd.

Name me the academy players playing for Man City regularly?

Name me the academy players playing for Chelsea regularly?

So, we're stuck with a difficult scenario. One snag is, Rodgers has to win the title, beause after all, he promised the owners the title, but the other snag is, he has to use academy players. You know, those same academy players that no other title challenging team are using.

The debate about academy players is now fast becoming decades old. We can all sing and dance about using academy players. It's nothing new. Since foreign imports into the British game, it's been raised as an issue. The real question is, how can it be changed? And how can the clubs making those changes still compete at the highest level of football?

Jimmy, the problem is for me is that we have players like Enrique sitting on the bench, coming on and not having the right attitude or ability. If we could sell or release these players, we could bring on say smith instead for example, and give him a shot. Look at southampton, Bertrand on loan from chelsea, couldn't play against them, so academy graduate Matt targett starts, does well and has helped the team out since.
We should have a first tea, squad of about 16 players, the rest should be filled out with the better of the youth squad. There will be no better experience than playing for the first team, some players may play better in the first team than the youth team.

23 Jan 2015 15:17:51
Jimmy, I think you have missed Adam's point. The rich list shows that United, Arsenal, City and Chelsea all make more money than us in terms of top line revenue.

Therefore, instead of spending £40m+, as he has indicated, buying the 'best' of the academies in other clubs, why don't we use our own? There may of course be exceptional youngsters on whom it may be worth spending money - Adam points to Moreno and Markovich of recent buys, the latter in particular is coming into his own after a tricky start when he was adapting to the team, league and colleagues - but instead of gambling £5-£10m on players like Alberto, Illori (who I still have hope for!), Borini etc, why not put our academy players on the bench and use them as subs and in appropriate games.

Its a viscous circle as without the exposure how will we, the club and most importantly the players know whether they will be good enough or not?

I do agree that not many players go on from our academy to do better at other clubs - a prime example is Mellor - but the impact on a young players confidence from languishing in the reserves and not getting game time cannot be underestimated.

Of course, it may be that our academy is just not producing good enough players. In which case, something needs to be done about that. I'm not at all itk, but I would speculate that this isn't the case, and that given the right chances, our academy players may do at least well enough to become valuable squad players (without costing multiple millions in transfer fees) and a handful may become first team regulars and/or legends a la Stevie G, Carra, Fowler, Owen etc. Maybe Raheem is on that path, albeit he was brought in from QPR aged 15.

I think this is one of Ed001's biggest beefs and I agree with him that instead of filling our squad and/or bench with £5-£10m players from other teams, I would rather give our academy players a chance. If they're not good enough after a few appearances, then by all means ship them on. But this way we will turn our academy into a valuable resource and future revenue stream, rather than an overhead with the bench filled with squad players who cost so much.

23 Jan 2015 15:53:01
I agree EMS.

Do you guys not think fans have slightly too higher expectations for youth players coming through though?

Anyone remember Lauri Dalla Valle? How about Dani Pacheco? Connor Coady? etc.

At one point these three amongst many others were to believed to be future LFC stars and are now not even playing top flight football.

I understand and appreciate that LFC's policy regarding the development of youth prospects is dire and this has contributed to a lot of wasted academy talent but I just sometimes think fans get all too excited about youth prospects and their potential and the reality is that only a few will succeed.

Thoughts? Ed001?

One question to everyone.

If Rodgers succeeded in getting konoplyenka last January, would sterling be where he is today?

23 Jan 2015 16:05:14
Jimmy and Fency are both right in a way. But this club doesn't go spend £40m on an amazing goalscorer to partner and stand in for Sturridge. (When selling the best striker in world football for neerly 80m)
Instead it gambles on Balotelli, Lambert, Borini, and then realises Sterling is more of a threat so we've got all these useless centre forwards in the squad and somewhere 17 places down the pecking order is probably a decent young striker in the acadamy who's NEVER going to get a chance !

Zeddicus,

Nice post. I do understand Adams post and I understand Ed01's and anyone else's gripe with not using academy players. But I have to look at the reality of the situation. If these academy players were good enough, they would play. That's just common sense. It's chicken an egg in some cases, because without the opportunity, how do you know if they're good enough?

I guess I don't see the fault lying at the managers feet soley because he doesn't play academy players. Problems within the academy need to be addressed by the club. The problem is fundamentally the clubs. It goes way beyond the manager. It's deep rooted. These are strategic club decisions.

Lavers, Zeddicus and Fencey, spot on.

Jimmy, Dortmund, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Athletico Madrid, Benfica, Porto etc all utilise academy players as squad players.

That list is hardly bad company in my opinion.

I don't think it's a case of us expecting too much from them, I think it's a case of us expecting too much from the club. If we just gave the top players in our academy chances we might have a few more coming through and making it at the top level.

Whoever it was who said this got my back up, you're damn right it did. Nothing annoys me more than people just taking the easy route and blaming the academy for not being good enough. Flanagan was literally our 3rd best right back in the academy behind Wisdom and McLaughlin. When Johnson got injured before that Merseyside Derby Flanno broke into the team in, Wisdom was out on loan and McLaughlin was injured so Flanno got the chance. If our third best right back in the academy was good enough, is anybody seriously going to tell me there isn't a few other good players in there? If you genuinely believe our academy is bad then whatever, you're beyond educating and you best go tell Pep Guardiola he doesn't know what he is talking about. It is how the club is integrating academy prospects with the first team that is the problem, not the quality of the academy!

23 Jan 2015 17:08:28
Not to mention the obvious point Jimmy - we don't have the money to spend like City and Chelsea. So for us to buy on a regular basis star players like Fabregas, Matic, Silva etc, we need to save money somewhere else. So rather than having £16m Salah on the bench, we need to have free Ibe etc

EMS
Flanno got into the team before Ryan Mclaughlin was even at the academy. When he came in cus Kelly and Johnson were injued, and had to play in a tough run of fixtures vs city and arsenal, wisdom at that time was 17 and not on loan but in the academy.Flanno had already proven what he was capable of doing in those games.

I'm not sure when you're on about Bob but last season when Flanagan made his first appearance since the Dalglish days, Wisdom was on loan at Derby, Kelly was injured and McLaughlin was at the club for about 2 years but injured.

I think you're perhaps on about the 2010/11 season under Dalglish when Flanno made his debut. He certainly didn't get a decent run of games though. From memory it was less than double figures.

I was talking about last season when he was actually given a proper chance due to Rodgers having his hand forced.

Interesting piece on a West Brom board about Wisdom. I've not seen him play this season, but it doesn't look like he's a RB solution for us.
'Wisdom isn't a footballer. he doesn't even look like one. He's wooden! I think there must be something in the loan contract that says that if he's eligible, then he has to start'

{Ed001's Note - I have watched every game they have played and he has looked good, not world class by any means, but he has looked light years ahead of any right back they have had in recent years that I have seen.}

Jon Flannagan had 7 games, i'd say that's enough to have broken into the team. All perspective though. Can you say some 1 has broken into a team when another player is out injured and the player gets played, egenrique and johnson last year. giving flanno that chance.

for the record I personally rate flanno better than wisdom, and in terms of reading the game and being defensive he's better than mclaughlin for me. I think rating him 3rd of those 3 is a harsh. Swings and round abouts though.







 

 

 
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