A lot has been made lately about young “starlets” all over Europe. The term is becoming more and more common among England and Liverpool supporters, and I feel that recently it has been used far too loosely by fans. The word, starlet, has been popping up everywhere and it seems that it has become almost trendy for us to refer to our academy products as the stars of the future.
I have no doubt that there is a lot of young talent at Liverpool Football Club, but I’m pretty sure not all of it will develop into Gerrard’s and Carragher’s. Obviously players like these two world class servants of Liverpool don’t roll out of the academy year after year but most fans would be happy with any young players good enough to play in our starting 11. Current so called ‘starlets’ that stand out for me are players like John Flanagan, Raheem Sterling and Martin Kelly. I’m not so sure we have many more young players who will really make a name for themselves’ in the world of football.
A couple weeks ago I read an article which was titled something like, “The future is bright for England and LFC” and it went on to talk about how many starlets we have at Liverpool and how many of them are representing England at a youth level. Those youth teams haven’t been very successful of late by the way, even with all of our magnificent starlets. I also read the comments on the article, one of them saying, “You obviously never saw Steven Gerrard when he was younger.” At first I had a good chuckle and then realised how right ‘Mr. Anonymous’ was.
On the 29th of November 1998 Steven Gerrard made his first team debut for Liverpool at just 18 years old. 10 years ago, in Liverpool’s treble winning season Stevie G was just hitting 21, a year younger than Jay Spearing. As we all know Stevie was highly influential on our success that season, scoring some key goals and already starting to become something of the driving force he is behind the team today. It was amazing that he was even on the field and playing football with such great names like Danny Murphy, Sami Hyypia, Robbie Fowler and Dietmar Hamann. I would have definitely called Steven Gerrard a starlet.
Liverpool do have a lot of young players who are good and have time to grow but I don’t see the so called ‘starlets’; Pacheco, Spearing, Darby, Coady, Ayala, Ince, Wisdom, Amoo and Robinson ever being anything super special or even just STARS in the future. The three names I mentioned earlier; Flanagan, Sterling and Kelly I do expect to feature for Liverpool and other’s I will look out for are names like Suso and Shelvey. To give you an example, a real starlet for me is young Ivorian Souleymane Coulibaly (dubbed to be the next Didier Drogba). The Côte d’Ivoire international currently plays his club football at Italian outfit, A.C. Siena. I doubt that will last much longer though as there has already been a lot of interest in him from a host of big clubs this transfer window.
So where do we draw the line? Who is a starlet and who isn’t? I certainly don’t believe that every young Liverpool player who represents England, or any country for that matter, at some youth level falls into the category of a ‘starlet’. As I said, I do believe however that Liverpool in particular does have a lot of young talent at the moment and it will be interesting to see what becomes of it. Hopefully our youngsters continue to grow next season.
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What a waste of an article
I would agree with most of what you said however I think Robinson is a so called starlet many of the coaches at the club believe he is better than Flanagan and think he will be a starter for not just Liverpool but England in a few years. Rafa made him Liverpool’s youngest ever player and I have been hearing a lot of good things while I only caught one glimpse of him against Arsenal marking Walcott he looked fantastic good positioning ,pace and had Walcott’s number.Jay Spearing I think will be a solid squad player but I do not feel he will ever be a starter sorry Jay.
Robinson is at least as good as Flanagan and Kelly, if not better.
A lot of what you say is true, but I think you’ve missed the point of the new yout set up.
We are no longer focused on winning youth cups etc.
The academy is trying to improve players individually so as to produce players for the first team.
So saying the youth teams have not been successful is irrelevant.
Martin Kelly is a serious talent in my view, already better than Johnson at RB. I can’t wait to see him at CB.
Flanagan seems tougher maybe a little more mature, but Robinson probably has more potential, so I wouldn’t like to have ti pick who will end up as best FB.
We have twentyfive youth internationals on our books,surely that is amazing by anyones standards?!
This is the kind of attitude that led Hanson to say you don’t win anything with kids and has led to the club spending millions in fees and wages to buy over rated pre Madonna’s from lesser teams and leagues to come to a club they usually don’t care much about and consistently under perform. Luckily we have the people running the club now who recognise that you cam buy short term success city, chelsea and real Madrid style but to maintain long term success for a prolonged period of time you need a strong core of club developed decent players who will bleed for the cause supplemented by spending big on a select few special talents to come into the club. This is how we did it in the past how the scum has maintained their dominance under whiskey nose and how Barcelona are doing it since rijkard helped transform them at the start of the millennium. We won’t necessarily see the benefits straight away but we have already started to and in maybe 5 years we will be truly dominant again because of it.
The only ‘starlets’ at Liverpool are Kelly, Flanagan, Robinson, Wisdom, Mavinga, Shelvey, Suso, Pacheco, Sterling and Morgan.
I think many of the youngsters in the academy will be premier league class players not necessarily at a big club.
I can see Wisdom Robinson and Coady will make a fist of it and Suso could be anything.
kelly world class – yes world class – a no contest
stirilg is the worlds number one in waiting – no doubt – not even a flicker of a doubt – unique – awesome – we are very very lucky to have him.
developing our own players is the only way go. we can’t compete with the sugar daddies at man city and chelsea cheating their way to the top. so this is the only way. in 5 years time hopefully we’ll wipe the smug smile off abramovich’s face.
Bang on about Souleymane Coulibaly this guy looks like a goal machine and perfectly suited to EPL with his strength. IF we are trying to base our team on youth development we HAVE to be going after this kid.
It may even pay to get sum1 older (drogba) have him play a max of 3 yrs and then the likes of morgan can come through. just a thought
Dalglish made a huge mistake in not giving Coady the last 10 minutes in the 5-0 win against Birmingham at Anfield last season. LFC need to be having the likes of Ngoo,Adorjan,Coady,Wisdom getting game time off the subs bench in the Premier League this coming season. If one adds up all the money LFC have wasted in the last 20 years on substandard players and the wages paid to them it would have comfortably paid for a new stadium by now. It is vital that Dalglish and Comolli are not allowed to fill up the Premier League squad with any more substandard signings this summer like Downing and Adam. It is also a disgrace that FSG have made no movement on the stadium situation this summer. The only activity at Anfield this summer is the grass getting cut while Old Trafford is undergoing major renovation. It is time that LFC and Everton come together to raise the funding for a new stadium with a 75000 capacity, this nonsense about sharing a stadium with Everton needs to stop as it would halve the cost of a new stadium which LFC clearly now desperately need as the idiots in the houses blocking the redevelopment of Anfield for the last 40 years are too stubborn to move. The two Milan teams share the San Siro so why can’t LFC and Everton do the same. LFC alone cannot afford a new stadium.
We also have a certain Danny Wilson who while not a part of the youth academy like Shelvey is also 19 years old and I believe is also a starlet and will feature a lot more in the seasons to come. His first few games where below par, but then again hes only 19 and those where his first games ever in the English premier league, and I believe he will grow to be a defender.