There has always been a clamour for young talent in football. Even when it isn’t there, and over the last 6 years I’ve seen no greater demand for it than at Liverpool.
Since Fergie landed the title with his ‘kids’ back in the 90’s, everybody wants a bit of that action. Liverpool haven’t produced a ‘star’ player since Gerrard 10 years ago, and that’s been a thorn in the side of many a fan.
The battle lines were drawn whenever it was deemed unacceptable to pick Johnny Foreigner over ‘one of our boys’. An example last season was Lucas Leiva being picked ahead of Jay Spearing. I don’t claim to be an expert, I simply observe, but from what I observed last season, Jay Spearing isn’t in the same class as Lucas, as hard as that is for some people to get into their skulls.
The demand for young English talent comes from... well, I don’t know where it comes from but it’s everywhere and it’s relentless. The solution has yet to be found, over the last 10 years various clubs have produced batches of promising starlets. Crystal Palace, Man City and Everton have all contributed to the next helping of hype. Remember all the fuss over Micah Richards? What about Walcott? Don’t forget Michael Johnson either! I wonder whether Jack Rodwell will fall into their category. Even as a Liverpool fan, it is interesting to be able to see a young players career develop.
In Houllier’s era, Liverpool imported a lot of French youngsters, Florent Sinama Pongolle being the greatest success. Besides him, none of them impressed despite the promise. Then came Rafa, and using Houllier’s rejuvenated facilities, he began to overhaul the youth system which ruffled a few feathers. Major ins and outs were afoot and some well known names were disgarded.
Since the Spanish inquisition started 6 years ago, Liverpool signed player after player as they scoured the Earth looking for talent. Some young players were deemed good enough to get a tasted of Premiership football; Lucas, Ngog and Insua were the notable ones. Despite their youth and promise, many felt aggrieved that the English lads were not getting a chance. Spearing, Guthrie and Hobbs were often talking points.
Out of the three above examples, only Spearing remains, and in my opinion, I wouldn’t be sad if he was moved on. This isn’t a grudge against Spearing, I genuinely hope he has a long career at a high level. For me, however, he just hasn’t got it, and sadly this is a theme running through a lot of our English young talent, and foreign too for that matter.
Pub talk is usually a source of amusement to me but over the last season I noticed a lot of it was criticism of Rafa’s reluctance to play the young English boys, and especially so when young imports have been selected ahead of the English. Following Rafa’s dismissal, I heard a lot of chatter about the future, naturally, but a lot of it was how Roy Hodgson would play the Brits. Personally, I think this type of philosophy is outdated in todays game and I’m not sure if it would pay dividends in the Premiership.
Barcelona are the only team I think who have had regular success with true homegrown talent, but they should rightly be seen as unique. It may just be me, and i hope it’s not, but football is an international game and therefore I favour Liverpool and it’s academy thinking internationally. England is a small pool to pick from and it’s league is the most demanding in the world, the sums just don’t add up.
I suspect that Roy Hodgson will give all the young players a chance, and everyone will have a clean slate. Giving Lucas the captains armband in pre-season was a brave decision following the 3 years of criticism directed at him. I will be very interested to see how many young players the manager chooses to play, especially in the Carling Cup (or whatever it may be called this season) where he has history of playing ‘weakened’ sides.
On a side note, it is a shame really, that the only player we have at the u19 Championships happening at the moment is Pacheco. Despite his promising performances, our Academy should have more representatives there.
My point, should I waver from it in my rambling, is the expectancy and misguided philosophy that British is best. British hasn’t been best since 1966 and I don’t think that’s going to change soon. The English are still teaching the kids to play with passion and fight, whereas the rest of the leading nations are teaching their kids to play with technique and guile. The revamp can’t start at Liverpool, it needs to start earlier than that.
The kids we have at the moment are all very promising, but the likelihood is 95% of them won’t have the honour of playing 1st class football at Anfield. Of that 5%, the amount Brits that will get the chance is very low indeed. I just hope that should Hodgson be reluctant to throw Spearing, Kelly or Darby in the mix, then he shouldn’t be judged on that fact.
If two experienced and dedicated managers follow similar patterns with our youth, will the calls for one type of youth player (British) stop? Or will we continue to complain that they aren’t given a chance?
The very argument that players are being denied the chance to play due to a managers stubbornness is generally idiotic and ignorant. Do we really think that a player who shines in training regularly wouldn’t be used in this cut-throat game? The value and demand of such players would almost force the manager to showcase such talents, whether it be for a financial reward or footballing reward. I think it’s simply a touch of anxiety from fans who want to see the new Gerrard or the new Fowler. The game moves fast though, and even since Gerrard came onto the scene as a raw holding midfielder, everything has changed.
Change is hard to take for the traditionalists, especially those who recall the all-conquering British teams of the 70’s and 80’s. Things aren’t like they used to be though, any issues Liverpool have with new talent won’t be solved by simply throwing British players into the mix.
Just a thought...
Chris Severs
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