When Benitez signed a new contract back in March 2009 then, he acquired overall control of youth team matters at the club and immediately set about reinforcing the link between the Academy and Melwood. He initiated a review headed by Frank McParland to see how the Academy could be restructured. The review led to cutting the number of youth team players in half to focus on the most talented, the sacking of 17 backroom staff and the appointment of McParland as Academy Director with former Barca youth coaches Pep Segura and Rodolfo Borrell in place to keep Rafa informed of progress. A policy of buying in English youngsters such as Jonjo Shelvey and Raheem Sterling was also initiated.
The improvement in how the Academy is run will certainly compliment the new policies of American owners NESV. They have appointed Damien Comolli to spot young talent, and the club is focused in developing a large crop of youth players in the same way as Arsenal. NESV see it as essential to their long term, profitable business model and see it as the best way to bring success to the club without spending large amounts on high priced players. No doubt Gerrard and Carragher have discussed the idea with Liverpool co-owner John W Henry about the idea of fusing the Academy and Melwood together physically as well as figurative fusion which occurred under Rafa. Demonstration that the job to restructure the Academy is not complete come from a failed Liverpool youth player Robbie Threlfall. Although he does criticise Rafa Benitez, it is clear his main problem was the lack of encouragement and more importantly presence from senior management:
“Like most of the lads at the academy, I didn’t have a relationship with Rafa, he wouldn’t speak to any of us on a personal level. It also didn’t help that we’d be performing well and then see a foreign player signed ahead of us. In my case that was Emiliano Insúa. When he came I knew my time was up.”
Fundamentally it seems that there was a lack of communication between Kirkby and Melwood even after the restructuring. In this sense Jamie Carragher’s idea to merge the two together seems like a good idea. The young players can be inspired by the established stars and they can feel they have a chance to prove themselves to the manager. That would mean however, redeveloping Melwood which was only opened back in 2001 . With Man U having state of the art facilities at Carrington, Chelsea at Cobham, and Tottenham building a new £45m complex at Bulls Cross, it maybe something worth thinking about for the new owners.
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STELLA WDM RESULTS
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TOP TEN LIVERPOOL MOMENTS OF THE DECADE
As we come closer to the end of 2010, I thought it might be good to look back at the last decade and see all the memorable moments Liverpool have had during that time. Of course, the most immediate memory is the Champions League final in 2005, but there are also individual memories such as Gerrard’s goals against Olympiakos in 2005 on the way to the “Miracle in Istanbul,” and the “Gerrard final” of 2006 where Stevie dragged the team to win the FA Cup. Also I have shared memories of instances that occurred under Gerard Houllier’s tenure such as the Golden Goal winner in the UEFA Cup final in 2001, Gary McAllister’s injury time free kick in the Merseyside Derby and John Arne Riise’s goal against Manchester United that nearly broke the goal post in two.
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Good article. Just goes to show how far behind the times we are. Merging Melwood and Kirkby should have happened a long time ago as with the larger stadium. Time to take LFC into the 21st century for another spell of dominance. YNWA.
Forget the new stadium. It would cost too much-look at how Arsenal have not won anything since they moved to the Emirates. Regarding the youth system the reason it has not worked is because it is based on the false concept that winning is not important between the ages of 8 to 18, and we then expect the same players from age 18 onwards to consistently produce winning results which is impossible.