The emphasis that Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish is putting on the “one club” mentality is spot on from my point of view. Senior players such as Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher have voiced their concerns in the past about the split between the Academy at Kirkby and the first team training ground at Melwood, and King Kenny is making every effort to heal the divide between the two places. The biggest concern over the past decade or so has been the fact that Liverpool’s young players barely ever have the opportunity to learn and improve by training with Liverpool’s first team players. Both Carragher and Gerrard feel this is one of the reasons why there has been a lack of players coming through, as there is no real inspiration or belief that young players could make it at the club. It was a situation not helped by many young players being bought to go directly into the reserves bypassing the process of the Academy and stopping the progress of those at Kirkby.

What Kenny Dalglish probably understands more than any other after his period as Academy Ambassador though is that Kirkby and Melwood must be as close as possible in regards to training methods, fitness programmes, statistical analysis and most importantly playing staff. Academy director Frank McParland wrote in his column for Liverpoolfc.tv about the background to Suso and Conor Coady’s promotion to first team training this week. He explained that Kenny had phoned him on Monday morning and told him he would be at Kirkby at 9.30 to have a meeting with all the Academy guys. At the meeting, he said he wanted to encourage a “one club” mentality where Melwood and Kirkby staff would interact about the young players, and that he himself would be down at the Academy as much as possible.

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This week it is Liverpool fan Caroline Wozniacki!

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