SOME of the red-tops reported on Tuesday morning that Tottenham were planning a £7.5 million bid for our talented young wing-wonder, Raheem Sterling.
The word from the club in recent weeks has been that Brendan Rodgers is looking to loan Sterling out; he doesn’t feel that the player is ready for first-team football yet, so these reports are slightly concerning.
The reason I find concern in this is that, given the difficulty the club have had in offloading Aquilani, Carroll and one or two others this summer, Rodgers may be tempted to let him go if we receive a substantial bid for the player, in order to fund the transfers of Allen, Ramirez, Dempsey, et al.
These are all players that I would really want to see at the club, don’t get me wrong. Just not at the expense of a player who could have 10-15 years at the club and become a top-quality player. Not to mention possibly save us an absolute fortune on wingers in that time too.
Similarly, last week it appeared as if the club were prepared to let Jonjo Shelvey go on loan to Fulham as part of a deal to bring Clint Dempsey to the club (or now, Swansea, for Allen). Sure, it would only be for a season but Shelvey is ready for the first team. He, perhaps more than any of our youngsters, has shown in the rare starts he’s had that he is a top-quality attacking midfielder in the making. I wrote glowingly about his abilities during last season and I really believe that this could be his breakthrough season, but he needs to be given the chance first.
And though it slipped under the radar somewhat about 10 days ago, the club releasing Toni Silva was a great disappointment to me. Having only watched him star in the U18’s thrashing of Exeter a couple of weeks ago – scoring the goal of the match – it was a real shock to find him being released only days later.
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Throughout the whole of last season (and much of Hodgson’s own reign), expensive acquisitions were able to perform well below par without fear of being dropped and when talented young players are being released, sold on or used as leverage in transfer deals it begins to raise the questions: what is the point in having an academy at all?
A poorly timed (and quickly removed) tweet from Suso over the weekend, in which he said ‘Liverpool… back with the reserves on Tuesday… nothing changes,’ went largely unnoticed in the mainstream press but the message was loud and clear. For a young player that has just starred at a major youth tournament and then impressed everybody in a few cameos on the tour of the US, it is a major annoyance to the player and the fans to hear that he will likely not feature next season.
With the likelihood of Dani Pacheco having a future at the club being slim-to-none, it would only compound the disappointment to see another talented youngster from Rafa Benitez’s reign be moved on too. And that is the fear with many of the talented youth that we’re currently lucky enough to have: they’re going to be sold, loaned to death or just be forgotten about, meanwhile we’ll squander more money and live to regret it, when these young stars come back to haunt us in the years to come.
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This is a very seriuos matter that club management shall realize. Liverpool is making a huge bloody mistake by letting go all the talented young players without giving opportunity. Very disappointed.
Completely agree. Shelvey can be a starter for us soon and Suso and Sterling looked good in preseason. Let them come off the bench every couple of games to get their confidence up. You know there will be an injury or two and they will then be ready to jump right in. Hell, if Spearing can get a game, then these three should as well.
I find Shelvey (as Spearing) verry average but Sterling and Suso deserve to be with the team.
At the end of the year, both should have played a lot for us.
Too right give these young players respect they have worked for & use on the bench,spearing & Adam should perhaps be moved on,unless we risk our future stars getting disenchanted!!
i will have a rant here re: poor academy poor scouting.. I seen a young kid play a few years ago and at the age of five lfc took him to there academy.. kept him there for two years then let him go due to size(messi,xavi silva all 5″7)
this same kid then got taken by ajax flew over to holland for a trail due to his age he couldnt stay full time ajax asked could he fly back over september in the measn time everton have taken him.
i have never seen a child play like this kid he is from a spanish family in liverpool and i was blown away by his skill pace and movemonet years ahead of his age standard
liverpool are poor at looking under there noses for talent there must be ten owens gerrard fowlers playing in the liverppol youth league week in week out..
look at the scum team of giggs scholes neville brothers beckham. talent made by them. fact where way behind them liverpool wake up.
i agree with peter. i had a debate in the local with a guy who said we should support the academy.. i said what for? to make players and ship them out to crew, shrewsbury, lincon?
in ten years how many players have played for the first team who have come from that academy?
so whats the point?
liverppol are sh*te at scouting
shi*e in the transfare market
sh*te as a business..
Hear us Rodgers!!!!!!We the LFC fans want the young Academy players to be given a chance. And if what my fellow fans said above is true, we are lucky to have been one of Europe’s elite at all!
spot on! LfC as if throw diamonds and get pebbles!!!
While I respect Rodgers, allowing Shelvey to go on loan, in return for Joe Allen, as some media has said seems stupid. How many times do you think Shelvey wants to go on loan until he says ‘enough, I want a move’. And from what I’ve seen of Allen for GB, Shelvey looked better in re-season.
He apparently thinks Stirling isn’t ready for the first team, yet it looks like Spurs think he is, and again looking at pre-season and the Euro games, he’s more ready than Downing.
After reading what Suso has said, and seeing what he did for Spain recently, losing him could be a huge blow for us.
Sadly we always seem to take young talent and turn them into average players who only seem to get a chance at around 20+ years old, and are then shipped out. When we have given young players a chance, in Owen, Fowler and Gerrard, they have thrived. Yes, they were exceptional players, but that could possibly have been because they were given their chances early, and excelled against older, more experienced players. Sink or swim, so to speak.
If young players have no expectation of making it to the first team, then the Youth set up will wither and die, as you won’t be able to attract young players, and those that are already there will not have the motivation to succeed, because they can see average first team players keeping their places and they don’t get a chance.
good article . there are too many ordinary players in the first team squad keeping talented youngsters out . no one minds top players like suarez , reina , johnson , agger keeping out the kids , but why do we buy the likes of adam ,poulsen , henderson , konchesky , maxi , wilson , and maybe borini , and dempsey if he comes .
we should spend our money on 1 or 2 top class players rather than 5 or 6 average ones and let the talented kids back up the slimmer squad