In an interview for the Mail on Sunday, Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard asked whether he agreed with Jamie Carragher’s idea that Liverpool’s training ground at Melwood and the Academy at Kirkby should be merged:
“I think it is a fantastic idea. What helped me get to this level when I was growing up was watching the first team train, having a chance to go to Melwood and seeing the players that I looked up to and dreamed of playing alongside. The kids don’t see Fernando Torres now, they don’t see Jamie Carragher, they don’t see me. They see us once or twice a year when they should be seeing us every day. We want to see them, speak to them, see what is there and help them. It certainly helped me having the likes of Jamie Redknapp, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman about. I was in awe of them and wanted to join them. Eventually I got there through seeing them every day and wanting to have what they had.”
It has been a subject that has been raised before by ex players and local journalists and one that has clearly been on the mind of the players too. It has been a bone of contention at the club for a fair few years and one that was said to be a cause of tension between previous manager Rafa Benitez and former chief executive Rick Parry. Rafa at the time felt there was no link between Melwood and Kirkby and while some of the elite youth players could be seen at Melwood, the rest of Kirkby’s youth players were hardly ever observed by first team scouts or coaches. It was an odd situation which meant many youth players had no experience of even reserve team football.
On top of this, Benitez felt that as he didn’t have any control over youth team policy, there was no real unity of purpose between Kirkby and Melwood. Rafa believed that Rick Parry, and former Academy Directors Piet Hamberg and Steve Heighway, were too slow in identifying youth targets and that consequently, the Reds had fallen way behind the likes of Arsenal and Manchester City. The evidence being that only Stephen Warnock had broken into the first team in the last ten years.
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STELLA WDM RESULTS
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TOP TEN LIVERPOOL MOMENTS OF THE DECADE
As we come closer to the end of 2010, I thought it might be good to look back at the last decade and see all the memorable moments Liverpool have had during that time. Of course, the most immediate memory is the Champions League final in 2005, but there are also individual memories such as Gerrard’s goals against Olympiakos in 2005 on the way to the “Miracle in Istanbul,” and the “Gerrard final” of 2006 where Stevie dragged the team to win the FA Cup. Also I have shared memories of instances that occurred under Gerard Houllier’s tenure such as the Golden Goal winner in the UEFA Cup final in 2001, Gary McAllister’s injury time free kick in the Merseyside Derby and John Arne Riise’s goal against Manchester United that nearly broke the goal post in two.
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Good article. Just goes to show how far behind the times we are. Merging Melwood and Kirkby should have happened a long time ago as with the larger stadium. Time to take LFC into the 21st century for another spell of dominance. YNWA.
Forget the new stadium. It would cost too much-look at how Arsenal have not won anything since they moved to the Emirates. Regarding the youth system the reason it has not worked is because it is based on the false concept that winning is not important between the ages of 8 to 18, and we then expect the same players from age 18 onwards to consistently produce winning results which is impossible.