Many have sung the praises of Liverpool youngster Daniel Ayala over the last year. Liverpool’s reserves coach John McMahon stated that he believed he felt the 19 year old Spaniard had the attributes to go all the way and make it to being a first team regular, while Rafa has constantly praised the player last season, starting him in two Premier League matches against Stoke and Burnley, while making substitute appearances in three others, most notably against Tottenham in the first match of last season. With the departure of Rafa Benitez though, it seems that Ayala is no longer wanted on Merseyside.
I recently did a feature on a few youngsters such as Nathan Eccleston, Dani Pacheco and Daniel Ayala, and questioning whether the new management would show the same faith as Rafa did, but I’d never for one minute thought Ayala would be out the door as quickly as it is becoming apparent. Skysports.com have confirmed that Ayala is set for a season long loan at Spanish second division side Real Valladolid with a view to a permanent move. One of the reason’s attributed by Sky is that Ayala has only a year left on his contract but I am almost certain the Spanish defender signed a three year contract extension back in November; in fact Skysports.com had an article on the 12th November saying as much.
Some Reds fans who felt Ayala had real potential might very well be annoyed at this news but before you jump down Roy’s throat on this one, it maybe understandable considering what he has already said on the matter. The need for English player’s due to the Premier League quota system is definitely an important factor in all transfer decisions:
“We have to find a basis of English players because of the way UEFA and Premier League rules are going. We’ve got to get more home-grown players otherwise we’re going to struggle to get our squad numbers together. Kenny Dalglish can play a very, very important role in this. The club has already brought in a couple of players like Jonjo Shelvey and Raheem Sterling. Top English talent. We have finished the World Cup with more players than any other team but looking at the squad at Melwood, it did seem very small in terms of seniors.”
Ayala joined the club on 17th September 2007 and the agonizing thing is if he had been bought just a month before he would have qualified as a home grown player under the Premier League’s new rules. Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore outlined the rules as follows:
“As of next season clubs will be required to have a squad named of up to 25 players, of which no more than 17 can be over the age of 21 and not home grown. The definition of home grown is trained for three years under the age of 21 by somebody in the English and Welsh professional system. Clubs will have to declare their 25 at the end of August when the window shuts and then again at the end of January.”
By the end of August, Ayala would have been trained for 2 years and 11 months in the English professional system, and therefore will not be classed as a home grown player. It is understandable that in the 17 non-homegrown players, Hodgson cannot afford to allocate spaces to player’s who are not regular first team players. It was therefore inevitable in some sense that Ayala would have to be loaned out with these new rules in place. The foreign player’s below were all used more times than Ayala last season:
Pepe Reina, Ryan Babel, Albert Riera, Maxi Rodriguez, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Martin Skrtel, Daniel Agger, Alberto Aquilani, Lucas Leiva, Javier Mascherano, Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt, Diego Cavalieri, David Ngog, Philipp Degen.
That leaves only two spaces for foreign recruits, and although some of the above will be sold, many of them will be replaced by foreign players once again. There is certainly a case for making Ayala one of the 17 at the end of August, but with Martin Kelly, another equally promising young centre back who is home grown, you can’t blame Roy for wanting to free up space in the 17 for higher quality players in a squad that already lacks depth.
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Typical short term nonsense from Liverpool!! – he may not count towards our home-grown quota this season, but he is a player for the long term future of the club!! Why not clear out Skrtel or Soto, two average defenders, to make way for the younger potential star to continue to develop in our team??
Keeping him and giving him further experience for another year would make him a better player who fits under the home-grown rule in the long term, or allows us to sell him for more money further down the road! Loaning him away means he loses the opportunity to be a home-grown player for us, as well as ensuring that we get a minimal fee for him from that second division club!! I’m pissed!!
And the people deciding this evidently believe they are intelligent? No wonder we are where we are today!
Man U could get away with letting Pique go because they had two world class defenders ahead of him with a good few years still left ahead of them at the time, as well as a few decent young defenders in the wings. In our case we’re going to be letting the potential young star go so that we can continue to develop a bunch of average older centre-backs instead!?! (Skrtel & Soto) Everybody goes on about the quality of the youth at Barca or quality young stars elsewhere, but they’d never develop at Liverpool with the ridiculous short term view that we’ve adopted in recent years (i.e. young players are kept on a ridiculously short leash, even if the senior counterparts are average players that are underperforming) 🙁
Sometime’s I can’t stand being a Liverpool fan 🙁
Jay you are too unrealistic! How in your eternal wisdom is the captain of Slovakia better than a 19 year old kid that you’ve seen play twice? Skrtel is far and away a much better defender than Ayala is RIGHT NOW! You call it short-sighted but you seem to think that the other clubs in the league will just leave the boy alone to grow and not score past him.
We need proven players for the next season and while Ayala can be really really good in 3-4 years time, are you going to let let him play and make mistakes which cost points? I’m all for youth development but if you can’t cut out the hyperbole about how good a player can be and compare to a senior player who had a spotty patch of form for ONE season (Remember Skrtel when he didn’t have a bad run of form and compare the two) your looking at this the wrong way.
Also, Martin Skrtel is 25 years old which means he will only get better as a centre back and give Liverpool his peak years. Its amazing how forgetful you can be, Skrtel shut Drogba up on at least 2 different occasions, lets see some skinny kid keep up with 6 foot 5 inch powerful striker.
I believe that Skrtel is a VERY average defender – he constantly gives away unnecessary stupid fouls which makes him a liability in my opinion, and no more of a safe choice than a talented young prospect. If he hasn’t cut that out at his age, there is no reason to believe that he is suddenly going to see the light and stop it any-time soon.
If we had top defenders playing like Man U did with Ferdinand & Vidic when they let Pique go, then OK it’s not worth taking any risks with an untried kid. However if it is the liability that is Skrtel, or the ageing Soto (who I do actually think is a decent option), then the argument changes.
btw, I’ve seen Ayala play for the reserves on numerous occassions thanks 🙂
Siddhant, your argument is very much like that which saw Rob Green play in the world cup – he was an experienced player but had just proven himself to be average, whereas the more talented option (Hart) was overlooked as he had not yet had the opportunity to prove himself on the bigger stage
We should try to give him a new contract and then maybe send him on a year long loan, but rather to a Championship side. While young Pacheco seems to be everyone’s favourite it was Ayala who has impressed me last season. Hodgson should do everything he can to tie him to our club.
This is utter garbage.
1)Ayala is 19 yrs old.
2)Ayala has 2 yrs remaining on his contract.
3)He would have been at Liverpool in excess of 3yrs before his 21st Birthday and he does qualify as a ‘home grown’ player.
4) Ayala was 17yrs old when he signed in Sept 2007 so he is 20yrs old in Sept 2010 and completes his 3yrs under the age of 21, trained at an English club etc …..
Typical journo rubbish.
these stories regarding the sale of our talented youngsters are worrying me more than the stories doom-mongering over sales of our entire squad and the like.
Isn’t Hodgson aware that you don’t have to be British to qualify as a homegrown player???
Wasn’t Kenny & some of the coaching staff kept around specifically to make Hodgson aware of who the more talented prospects are???
Are we going to be going through another five year period of signing ‘wonder-kids’ that see their careers stalled in our reserves???
🙁
what’s even more idiotic is that you can play as many under 21’s as you like outside of the 25 man squad. so why is he going?
Oh my God,How can Liverpool be blind to sell a future player like this…This is the Mistake Man Utd did with Gerard pique and now he’s one of the best defender in the World…Please Liverpool,Dont make mistake you will regret.