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View from the Kop

How Rodolfo’s academy plans could go up in smoke

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Rafa Benitez once again avoided committing his future to Liverpool after the Europa League semi-final defeat to Atletico Madrid. Asked whether he would be at the club in August, Benitez would only talk about the upcoming games:

“My future is Chelsea on Sunday. After that? Hull the following weekend.”

Considering Rafa also mentioned the need to bring in four or five players, and the club’s need to “balance the books” over the last few seasons, it suggests Rafa Benitez is holding back on committing his future until he gets some assurance from the board about transfer funds. I have mentioned before the net spend last summer of £4.95m and Rafa surely will not stand for the same amount again, as there could only be a repeat of the disappointing campaign this season if such a small amount of investment was authorised. “Wheeling and dealing” has been the order of the day for the past two years, and although there have been mistakes in the transfer department, most notably Robbie Keane, the amount of money invested in the team compared to many of the club’s above us is small by comparison.

Such a lack of investment, encouraged Rafa to look at other ways to bring in players, and one of most important elements was to look at Liverpool’s academy. In the last decade, youth players coming through the ranks at Anfield have not been good enough, and one of the crucial elements of Rafa Benitez’s new contract last year was to get the youth system directly under his control. It was no coincidence that straight after he signed his new contract, Benitez assigned Frank McParland last March with the task of assessing the state of the Academy. It led to a complete reorganisation last summer with the likes of Barcelona youth coaches Pep Segura and Rodolfo Borrell coming in, along with 14 other non-playing staff.

From this, it is clear that Benitez had a long term strategy in place to improve Liverpool as a club, not merely the playing staff but facilities, culture, training techniques and medical expertise. It is for this reason, the prospect of Benitez leaving is concerning. Even after the signing of Jonjo Shelvey, Benitez was talking of the need for the club to bring more young English players that have passion for Liverpool. It is part of a long term plan he says to reshape the club below first team level.

Central to this plan is Rodolfo Borrell. As I have mentioned in articles before, Borrell as Under 18s coach has a crucial part to play in this restructuring. A man who coached Lionel Messi, Cesc Fabregas and Gerard Pique in the same team, Borrell knows what it takes for a youth setup to work properly. He was stunned at the poor standard of the club’s academy when he joined Liverpool in the summer. He told the BBC:

“The reality of what we found here was unacceptable.”

It is a worrying indictment of what has been going on at the Academy over the last ten years, and why the club has only really developed one Premier League class player in Stephen Warnock during that time. Borrell went on to explain in the interview with the BBC as to why:

“The under-18s had no centre forward, no balance. They had no tactical level, no understanding of the game. We are working hard, but you can’t change things overnight. I think we have made a lot of progress over eight months, but we need to improve a lot more to get more players into the first team. I think if we keep working hard maybe in two years somebody can appear in the first team.”

It will be a long term project to improve Liverpool’s young players both technically and tactically after year’s where the training has not been at the required level. It is not just on the training pitch where Rafa wants a marked change though. He wants to replicate the culture of Barca’s La Masia youth academy, where everything is incorporated around the club and where there is a central core of local, passionate talented players. Borrell states:

“When I arrived the first thing Rafa told me was that the biggest interest is to try to develop English players. I agree – the best players to defend the Barca shirt are Catalan players, the best players to defend the Liverpool shirt are English players. . . We have to fight to make English players arrive. If in two or three years one of our players does make the first team, I think he will be English.”

If Rafa leaves, Borrell and Academy Technical manager Pep Segura may not get the two or three years they need to transform the fortunes at Kirkby. Every new coach will want to bring in their own backroom staff and it might lead to an exodus of the Spanish coaching team, including Borrell. Where would that leave the Academy? Halfway through a transition process without those who were at the centre of initiating it. For me, Rafa leaving would have consequences far more wide-ranging than the change of first-team personnel, it could also set back a crucial part of Liverpool’s future, the reformation of the Academy which is still in its infancy.

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9 comments

  • David mark Aris-Sutton  says:

    You could see Rafa’s reluctance to commit his future as paving the way to leave or you could see it, as I do, to be a bargaining stance. “give me what this club needs or let me out” his stantments seem to suggest.
    Many people will see this as an abdication of responsibility for the current poor state of the squad “why hasn’t he done better with all the money he’s had” you can hear them scream but as the figures show, he hasn’t really had the money, at least not in the right way.
    Its all very well having a transfer budget of £40m but if to get it you have to shed players then the money will have to be spread even more thinly and you will get less quality.
    Perhaps it is time for our Rafa to go, I won’t argue that he is perfect, but who comes in? who is available that will take the job under the current restrictions? and if you are going to give the new man money, which you wouldn’t give to Rafa, who’s to say they will spend it any better than he can?
    Supporting this club is a life long commitment so please, give him the money and give him another two seasons, make it clear that is all he has and if he should fail he would be expected to leave gracefully, without a payoff but with gratitude for putting his all into bringing this club back to its glory.

    YNWA

  • lordofthewing says:

    How can you call Keane a mistake? Was he not a board signing?

  • rowan says:

    Totally agree. Rafa is not to blame for the mess, hes the only one sorting it out! I trust in purslow too as he is a red and will want to give us solid foundations. Thing is, will new investors come in soon enough to continue rafas master plan.
    As with the youth set up, you cant change the modus operandi of the club over night, and lets face it, it was pretty tuck shop when moores had it.
    Rafa is making a cry out for some money men to come in.
    Whatever happens, we’ll have around 50m to spend this summer. 25 from sales 25 from the kitty. That will get us 3 world class players, plus jovanovic(who i think will become a cult hero).
    Plus a few of the reserves have to challenge for place soon too.
    Its not all doom and gloom.

  • stan howard says:

    i thought rafa signing a five year contract a few months ago was a long term committment ?having no strikers cost us dear, there can be no excuses for it, even voronin would have been better than what we have, strikers were sold but not replaced, its not rocket science

  • David mark Aris-Sutton  says:

    @stan

    I agree that the striker shortage has cost us, we only have four recognized strikers (Babel, Ngog, Kuyt and Torres), but I don’t think the quantity is the real problem, more the quality.
    With the exception of Torres we don’t have a world class front man, but they cost money and as we have seen the money is not available, its there, but Rafa is not allowed to spend it and when he is he has other roles for which we are even more sparsely stocked.
    Many people will say that’s because Rafa spends unwisely but look at the players he did bring in recently, Maxi and Nick the Greek, £2.5m the pair , a real bargain, perhaps if he were given a lump to spend on one player we could have another Agger, Xabi, a Pepe or even a Torres.
    Also with regard to the five year contract, maybe that was a sort of bargaining chip, we know that because of that contract getting rid of Rafa would be damn expensive, improving his position when he does say “back me or sack me”?

  • Fivelamps says:

    Stan is absolutely right, we deserve more than this. The club has not progressed as we have wished and it is not solely down to money – there have been so many questionable substitutions and the use of so many lacklustre tactics against inferior sides that you have to question the direction that the manager has taken us in. It is all very well saying that the academy was rubbish – it seems strange that no young players have really been given a chance by Benitez – just look at Hazard the 19 year old frenchman who played so well against us – our 19 year old Pacheco is left on the bench and given 8 minutes to make an impression on the game after Degen is thrown on. It is time for Rafa to go. A new manager and yes maybe even new backroom staff – the recent BBC interview strikes me as a bit of spin – its been 6 years and we are left looking at gutless display after gutless display (last nights efforts excepted because they tried as hard as they could without the real cutting edge of forward players who could make a difference). I think there are also huge questions about Rafa Bentiez’s man management skills. The Scouse heart has been ripped out of our club and replaced by a bunch of mercenaries (Pepe Reina an honourable exception) Steve Heighway may not have been named Pedro something or other but I wonder why after so much loyal service to the club he was just sidelined and ignored – the academy is being painted as blacker than it was.And finally I am fed up of the team playing like a bunch of robots. Time for a change – Benitez like Houllier before him is a decent enough man but it’s time for him to go.

  • David mark Aris-Sutton  says:

    And fivelamps, who would you replace him with, all very well calling for him to go but unless you have a better man to take his place its just so much hot air

  • Fivelamps says:

    Gus Hiddinck, Cappello, Roy Hodgson, Steve McClaren, Mark Hughes – Pep Guardiola, Phil Scolari to name but a few…..and the list can go on…
    And in the end if the job is up for grabs and RB goes off to Italy – there will be a good field available – not Mourinho obviously due to his innate negativity and by the way Mr Aris free speech and debate are not ‘hot air’ as you contend but the honest views of a very frustrated true supporter of over 45 years….

  • David mark Aris-Sutton  says:

    I did not mean to insinuate that your opinion was not valid, it is, I just don’t feel that there is any stand out replacement that can do better with the same situation.
    Hodgeson has done well and I rate him, but is he available and does he want the job? without assurances of money to spend it appears to me that the job could be seen as something of a poison chalice

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