With the question marks over the future of reserve team football, something the FA is likely to do away with anyway, could nursery clubs be the answer for youth development? As well as benefiting the clubs involved, the system could also benefit the national side in the long run, by providing game time and more competitive football to players from the big clubs at an earlier age, aiding their development and making it easier to see who could make the step up.
The likes of Raheem Sterling and Suso at Liverpool are showing incredible promise and talent, and could really benefit from a nursery club scheme. Playing football at a higher level would serve to aid their development rather than the weak reserve league, or the youth league which isn’t a good stage for young players to develop – pitting inexperience against inexperience is not going to improve quality. With big signings coming in all the time, it is hard to make the breakthrough to the Liverpool first team, especially if there are a line of players ahead of you. Kelly and Flanagan broke through because they are talented, but also because Liverpool were struggling for players in their positions. How would a central midfielder break through and be given a chance when there is about ten others in front of him? A nursery club would solve this, allowing the player to work his way up through the ranks, and gain vital first team experience week-in-week-out.
Liverpool have a wealth of riches in terms of youngsters at their disposal, but it is what they now do with these prospects that is important. They wouldn’t want to let a talented youngster slip through the net, or not live up to their potential, and the best way to develop the amount of quality they have coming through is via a nursery club. Although the FA are opposed to it, it does seem like the best way to bring through young players. It certainly hasn’t done Barcelona any harm, and they have arguably the best academy and youth set-up in the world. With Liverpool’s academy progressing quickly, is it time to reassess the strategy and the best way to bring these talented youngsters through?
The article was written by Lauren Rutter for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.
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Not sure I agree. The quality of the football in the lower leagues may be so poor that it becomes detrimental to the youngsters game. Also, the quality of the pitches they will be playing on may be far lower than they are used to, not allowing their natural game to flow (I’m thinking more of the fleet-footed wingers and forwards we have on the books at the moment than the defenders).
The idea is a good one in principle however, but it depends at how low in the football league we are talking!
i agree there should be nursery clubs fr the top teams in BPL ….liverpool have wealth of youngsters n we know that they will not be given more chances in the senior side as yet so y not a Liverpool B team in de championship to develop them instead of loaning our players to other clubs every year which can some time change a players style …
The issue is why would Liverpool, or anyone else, be allowed to put a B team into the championship and take up a place that another smaller team once had or should have. I agree with the idea of nursery clubs, but think if the clubs want to do it domestically they need to plan it long terms and start the team off at the bottom of the leage and let them work up (AFC Wimbledon style) or they utilise the SPL – Surely a team like Dundee or Hibs would welcome the opportunity to get some of the talented players on the books at Liverpool into their squads to compete in the SPL, and the SPL do appear to be prepared to embrace change more…. might be an option.
Would it not be more expedient to simply improve the reserve league? If you had a mirror system where there would be a prem, championship, league 1 etc of reserve sides and they played regular games against each other. 1 might hope that the aggregate quality of all youth sides would go up.
i think the physicality in the english lower leagues wouldnt bode well for ‘smaller’ up and coming youngsters.i could see the likes of Sterling getting kicked all over the pitch because he’s too skillful for opponents to get near.lower leagues in spain are a different story.
Not sure I agree with this but I don’t know enough about it to make a proper judgement. The problem I see here is that it will push smaller clubs out of the league just to benefit some of the big clubs and the gap is already too large between the big boys and the rest. Unless they are going to extend the number of teams in the lower leagues but I don’t think that is possible with the number of games they already play. At least with the current loan system, both teams benefit from the loan and I like to see the larger clubs helping out the not so wealthy ones. I feel that with the proposed system of nursery clubs you are just ensuring that the top clubs stay at the top which makes thing pretty boring in the long run.
The FA will not give in and its strange how they complain that the English are not good enough to compete on the world stage! Simple solution! Have feeder teams! Teams locally such as Tranmere where we make agreements to loan our players to for the development. I’ve been to 30 odd some youth matches and reserve matches and it’s not intense at all. Look at how well Tom Ince performed for Notts County on his short loan (why we didn’t leave him is baffling!). Arsenal, Man Utd have good youngsters who are ready because of loan moves! Look how many ManUtd loanees are out there! How do we expect Nemeth, Pacheco and others of the past to get better without a season or two on loan where they compete in the Championship. Didi is now a gaffer, this is where we should contact him and loan a few players out who are on the cusp of greatness! ie: Sterling, Suso who are still 2-3 years away from 1st team action!