Will the Academy’s new direction prove to be the answer?

The overhaul of the reserve team and academy setup is not something that will pay off in a season, or one which can be measured by results on the pitch. This is just as well because it’s been as bad a season for the under 18s as it has been a good one for the reserve team.

We will know it is a success if it is generating more footballers not only for Liverpool FC but high calibre footballers for other teams also. However, on the announcement of the creation of the new system the club management set out some clear criteria by which it is possible to judge the extent to which the system is headed in the right direction.

For the uninitiated, the changes were extensive and wide-reaching. The club got rid of 10-20 long term employees from coaches for age groups below the academy to medical and scouting people. Kenny Dalglish is an ambassador involved in player recruitment, Frank McParland runs the setup and Rodolfo Borrell from Barcelona heads up the academy.

There are four areas where the reformed set up aimed to improve the club: player recruitment, successful transition of players between age groups, prepardeness of young players for the first team and the number of young players who make the grade for the first team.

Player recruitment

No-one who watched James (one who got away) McCarthy’s performance for Wigan was left in any doubt of the importance of sharpening-up Liverpool’s recruitment process. Inevitably whenever a young player is signed, we read about how Liverpool were competing against lots of other teams for his signature. It will be some time before we know that Real Madrid were really that bothered to have lost Gerardo Bruna. But there are signs that suggest the Reds have done well with two major acquisitions of young British players: Michael Ngoo and Raheem Sterling.

It will be a while before we know whether Michael Ngoo can combine his size and athleticism with footballing skills at the highest level. But Southend United complimented Liverpool on the way they handled his recruitment which surely leaves the club better placed to deal with other lower league sides in the future. And, exciting debut aside, the signing of Raheem Stirling, a young England player, would seem to have been secured in competition with other teams. Young England players don’t spend long plying their trade in London before they (usually) sign for Spurs.

Successful transition of players

There is some evidence that players are successfully making the transition between the age groups. Already this season we have witnessed Martin Kelly, Jay Spearing, Nathan Eccleston, Daniel Pacheco and Daniel Ayala play some part for the first team in a truly competitive fixture (as opposed to cup games with little riding on them). We know that some elements of player care off the pitch has been integrated into the work of the junior rank; I understand that reserve team players now take ice baths, mimicking the first team.

However, this is a mixed picture. Whilst Chelsea are on record as saying that they won’t make a decision on a player until they are 23 years old, six months of being involved in the reserve team was enough for the Reds to decide that Christopher Buchtmann wasn’t going to cut it at the club. Rumours abound that ‘striking sensation’ Lauri Dalla Valle is unhappy at his lack of reserve team action this year and will be leaving as soon as he has the chance, although his recent involvement for the ressies may quell the rumours for now. Tom Ince appears to have had a frustrating season for the under 18s whilst many of his peers from last season’s FA Youth Cup run have progressed to regular reserve team action.

Preparedness of young players for the first team

The successful contribution of Daniel Ayala is a major tick in this box. Few people whom I sat with at the Emirates as he and Joe Kennedy were torn apart by Arsenal’s young guns would have imagined that he would be playing in the very next competitive game for the first team. However, the lack of opportunities afforded to Martin Kelly (and Stephen Darby to a lesser extent) as Carragher and then Mascherano filled in at right back suggests that this isn’t an unmitigated success just yet.

Number of young players who make the grade

The success of the youth setup will always be measured in terms of the number of young players who come through and play for Liverpool – particularly local lads. However, the club will see some success in players like Danny Guthrie making a contribution to the top tiers of the game, and his transfer value alone paid for a year or so of the whole operation.

Things have already got better on this front in the last couple of years, so it’s hard to know how much of this is due to last season’s changes. Emiliano Insua, David Ngog and even Lucas Leiva all show some positive signs that young players can be groomed at LFC.

However, none of the off the pitch changes tackle a critical issue beyond the capability of LFC alone: what to do with those players who’ve learnt enough in reserve football but aren’t ready for a club with Champions League aspirations. Players like Nabil El Zhar, Stephen Darby and most notably Jay Spearing spend too much of the season involved in the first team setup but not playing enough competitive football at a high enough level to make satisfactory progress. The loan deals for players like Krisztian Nemeth and Spearing are part of the answer – and it will be important for one of these to pay off. The reds haven’t brought a player back from a loan deal for consistent first team action since Danny Murphy more than 10 years ago.

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