Is there a solution to some of these academy issues?

The initial response was good with Liverpool winning the FA Youth Cup in 2006 and 2007 but graduates from the academy were fleeting and the reserves became bottlenecked with players who either weren’t eventually good enough or who weren’t allowed to prove themselves for the seniors.

Benitez famously signed close to 80 players during his six seasons at Anfield with the vast majority of those designed to be the next generation. Quite what happened since has followed a familiar theme, with names like Barragan, Roque, Paletta, Duran, Nemeth and Ayala amongst many others briefly appearing before swiftly disappearing. In total, Benitez brought in 40 players under the aged of 20 with only Daniel Pacheco (on loan at Rayo Vallecano), Peter Gulacsi (on loan at Hull) and David Amoo (on loan to Bury) still at the club.

The case of Pacheco typifies the sort of scepticism which is not only contradicting Liverpool’s faith in youth, but that too of many Premier League clubs with similar infrastructure. Pacheco was signed from Barcelona as a 16-year-old in 2007 and subsequently went through the well-trodden steps across the clubs youth and reserve teams. Pacheco fleetingly popped up in the seniors largely as a substitute during the 2009/10 season yet starred for Spain at the Under-19 European Championships in the summer of 2010 when the forward was top-scorer as his team reached the final.

That should have been the springboard for a prolonged promotion yet Pacheco was granted the indignity of making up the stiffs in the Europa League and League Cup before being farmed out on loan. Intriguingly, Spain were beaten by France in the final of the Under-19 tournament with Chelsea’s Gael Kakuta being named Player of the Tournament only to find similar isolation from his club despite almost incurring them an international transfer ban for trying to sign him in the first place.

So, given the low ratio of players that do successfully command a place in first-team squads, do these academies represent good value, and what can be done to increase the amount of talented players who so often fail to make the grade?

Many concepts have been put forward including the creation of an elite academy league to increase the competitiveness of academy games. Feeder teams are another impractical solution and in theory young players would gain nothing more or less than the loan spells they are regularly sent on anyway. Youth quotas have been implemented of sorts with their effects again questionable so whichever way you look at it, surely these suggestions are taking the emphasis away from the infrastructure clubs have so heavily invested in?

After scouting and signing the best players and staff from around the world, training them in facilities that few clubs can match and providing players with the sort of football education that should provide a seamless path to future progression, still there is a dearth of players seemingly capable of making the step up?

The key word in that last statement was ‘seemingly’ as time and again players have to go elsewhere to prove their worth, often in less expectant surrounding where they are given the time and encouragement to prosper. If that is the case, the real answer is that clubs should show more faith in their youngsters, and allow them to integrate themselves into the fold. However, given the necessity for instant success biding time is often simply not tolerable and as such, makes the money thrown at academies appear obligingly mis-spent.

The article was written by John Baines for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.

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