The Liverpool youngster has returned from loan, along with a handful of others in the last week
It’s been a long time in coming, but Liverpool finally seem to have a manager that doesn’t believe the club’s youth is best served by being constantly sent out on loan.
Going back 10-15 years, most young players served their time in youth teams, U21s or (previously) reserve teams, where they were able to gain experience from senior players returning from injury, or simply out of form.
However, over the past few years, the loan system has gone into overdrive, with Chelsea the best example of a club signing up the best young players and letting them languish on loan for years.
At present, the Premier League champions have around 30 players out on loan (give or take a few senior players), whilst Liverpool themselves had sent around 15-16 players on loan at the start of the season. Admittedly, a number of those are senior squad members, but most are youth talents.
But after recalling Tiago Ilori, Ryan Kent and Sheyi Ojo in the past week, Klopp has stated that the loaning out of Liverpool’s best young players is something that will need to believed reviewed over the summer.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo last night, Klopp said: “It is important we take our own players back like with Kent, Ojo and Tiago.
“These are our players and we have a situation (with the injuries). In my opinion the best talents should be at their own club so they can play together for the under-21s and develop as a team, so you always have them around you.
“That’s how I think it should be. Now we take them back and it’s a big chance for the boys. Offensive wingers and a centre-half are interesting for us in this moment.
“The loan system is something we need to look at in the summer – the best talents should be in their club so they can develop.”
Suggestions at this time are that a number of these young players could feature in some capacity against Exeter tonight, although it yesterday that Klopp was keen to sign a new centre back ahead of the tie.
Either way, the likes of Kent, Ilori and Ojo have not been recalled to sit on their hands, so it’s highly likely we’ll be seeing them in action at some point in the coming weeks. Particularly if the Reds’ injury crisis refuses to let up!
Keep it up Mr kloop
Best idea ever !
We need to develop our young players and, Jurgen has the ability to turn them into world class players. Let us stop buying over priced players who don’t really want to play and develop our own who desperately want to play in the first team.