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Head of Football Development? Let’s hope it’s not just lip service

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One of the many good things about Roy Hodgson’s appointment as Liverpool manager is his vast amount of experience in the game. With a career in club and international management spanning over 35 years, Hodgson is coming to this job with his eyes firmly wide open, and no doubt he has his own views on how to move the club forward. Alongside him will be another man with bundles of experience in the English football, Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish, and Kenny has stated he is prepared to work with his old friend to help him in this difficult time for the club. He said to the Daily Mail:

“I look very favourably on the appointment. I have known Roy a long time and have a great respect for him. We’ve not had detailed conversations yet but my interests are in Liverpool.”

According to Hodgson, the club want Dalglish at the club long term to help future managers, and to drive a long term vision to get the club back where it belongs. To this end, both Roy and the club have proposed giving Dalglish the position of “Head of Football Development.” This could of course just be an honorary position without any real power, to placate him after stating his desire to become manager, a fact confirmed by Martin Broughton yesterday. Hodgson believes his long standing friend Kenny can play a very important role in this new period under a new manager. Hodgson knowledge of the problems at the club indicates a promising start for the 62 year old:

“Kenny will play a very big part in bringing youth players through. If he is going to take on the role of head of football development his role– especially with the new rules coming in – making that bridge between Kirkby (where the academy is based) and Melwood (the first team training ground) is going to be a vital one. . . I had a long conversation with Kenny before I got the job and we need to sit down together now to work out how it will work in practice. With goodwill on his side – and there is plenty of goodwill on my side – we should find a solution.”

It is not at all surprising of course, after all Hodgson is a true student of the game and has probably already seen some of the problems, beyond boardroom level, that need to be addressed. The gap between the Kirkby Academy and Melwood has been a problem that has beset the club for over a decade, and maybe Dalglish, as the Academy Ambassador, has stated such a problem to Hodgson in the past. Youth coaches had until recently been developing players in isolation to the goals and requirements of those running the first team at Melwood, and the lack of communication between the two led to a full scale review of the Academy last year under Frank McParland. Benitez effectively took control of the youth academy after signing his new contract last March and set about sacking a number of coaches, some highly respected such as Steve Heighway, and replaced them with others, including two coaches Rodolfo Borrell and Pep Segura, who had experience of the famed La Masia academy in Barcelona.

From the outset of the introduction of new staff last year, the aim was to breed the same of ethic and replicate the same conditions as some of the world’s best academies, trying to develop young British players who had a “passion” to play for Liverpool. The Premier League quota was no doubt an extra motivating factor for this project to be pushed forward, and the purchases of the likes of Jonjo Shelvey and Raheem Sterling are the results of this process. Hodgson seems to have already bought into this plan going by his comments and has identified Dalglish as the key link man between the youth and first team who could help reproduce an academy that has developed players such as Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen in the past.

The question will be to what extent he’ll have an influence on the way the club is run. Perhaps his role being changed from Academy Ambassador to Head of Football Development will be just a change of title, but let’s hope it is more than that, and he can assist Roy properly in getting a youth system up their with the very best.

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