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View from the Kop

The Kids Are Alright

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WITH eleven changes made to Liverpool’s starting line-up for the League Cup game against West Brom, there was a lot of pressure on both Brendan Rodgers and the team he sent out on Wednesday night.

With a 2-1 victory ensuring that our attempt to defend the first trophy we won for six years did not fail at the first hurdle, the result and performance on Wednesday night was a reminder for Reds fans that for all our struggles so far this season, Liverpool have a host of promising youngsters whose presence at the club suggests a brighter future.

Raheem Sterling has already been a revelation and though it would be wrong to expect too much from the 17-year-old too soon, his performances this season suggest that Sterling has the potential to be a fantastic player. It was encouraging to see Suso look so comfortable against Manchester United and the young Spaniard continued to show his promise at the Hawthorns, playing a role in setting up Nuri Sahin’s winner. Despite his red card in the United game, Jonjo Shelvey is another youngster who has done well in our early season games, while honourable mention goes to Samed Yesil and Oussama Assaidi for their performances on Wednesday.

By sending on Jerome Sinclair as a substitute against West Brom, our youngest ever player aged just 16 and 6 days, Brendan Rodgers sent a clear message to Liverpool’s young players – if they impress him they’ll get a chance in the team, irrespective of their age. Rodgers has already shown that he will rest players in the Europa League and Capital One Cup, and having sold so many of our fringe players this summer, it is inevitable that Rodgers must turn to youth when rotating his squad. This provides invaluable first-team experience for our young players while also preventing our senior players from being burnt out by the end of the season. Since Rodgers is bold enough to play our youngsters in important games if they’ve performed well when given their chance, his squad rotation will also keep senior players on their toes.
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If our League Cup performance against West Brom is anything to go on, our younger players will do well under Rodgers because they are able to adapt to his style of football more quickly. As some costly defensive errors have shown, our senior players who are not used to playing tiki-taka need time to adapt to this style. Since our youngsters are still learning the game, tiki-taka is easier for them to become accustomed to – particularly since we have talented young Spaniard’s such as Suso and Dani Pacheco. The departure of Pep Segura was a blow to our Academy, but if the club continues to follow the system Segura put in place I’m sure more youngsters can and will break into the first team.

Arsenal have shown the extent to which fielding youngsters in the League Cup can aid their development for years and I would love to see Liverpool retain the cup while also using the competition to blood our younger players. When hiring Brendan Rodgers as Kenny Dalglish’s replacement, FSG indicated that they wanted the Northern Irishman to implement a long term plan at the club. Part of that plan involved a focus on youth and from what our youngsters have given us a reason to be positive despite our recent struggles.
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1 comment

  • murt says:

    Its refreshing to see the younger players respecting & responding to his system &style of play ,the older lads are slow to pick it up ,or really not keen to adapt,(old dog new tricks spring to mind)one way or another they will be looking over their shoulders at all that potential intent on staking a senior team spot.The future is Red & Rodgers.

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