“Brendan is building a project” – the words of ex-Liverpool player, Xabi Alonso.
That he is. Despite the inconsistencies this season; both with personnel changes and in terms of performances, this season’s definition of “project” could not be more apt.
Fenway Sports Group’s understanding of this season as ‘transitional’, with the stated aim being to ‘finish as high up the table as possible’, without the necessary requirement of top-four placement, certainly shows us their understanding of the exact situation Liverpool Football Club is in, and what is required to change it.
FSG – in my view – have always been in this for the long-haul. Appointing Kenny Dalglish as manager once they took over LFC was not, as some would suggest, a “care-taker” appointment. They made it quite clear that the requirement was to finish in 4th place or higher, having certainly provided the budget for doing so.
But Dalglish and Damien Comolli blew it on what were largely over-priced, over-seasoned, mediocre players, far from capable of securing even a top 6 finish.
The one signing that was well worth it was, needless to say, Luis Suarez. Although, perhaps just as an interesting aside, Comolli remarked that he knew Suarez was no more than a “15-18-goals-a-season player”. This, in my view, nicely sums up his incompetence.
By the end of the 2011-2012 season, it was clear that when FSG appointed Brendan Rodgers as Liverpool manager, their ideas and philosophies were ready to be properly stamped through Liverpool Football Club. At its centre, policies of youth, wise-buys, and a complete style of dominant, passing, attacking football, combined with a young, genius (and I do not mix my words) manager.
But FSG got more than they bargained for.
Since Rodgers’ appointment, Liverpool Football Club has been turned upside down.
Our academy has always been a great institution. Serious amounts of talent has been nurtured there, often making its way into the first team: the likes of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Michael Owen and, more recently, Raheem Sterling.
But it was not until Rodgers came to LFC that the academy really began the work it was already so well positioned to do: to be the centre of a Revolution.
Rodgers’ desire to implement his free-flowing, attacking football across not just the first team, but throughout the whole academy, all the way down to the under-7s team, is more than I think even FSG had envisaged – certainly not on the scale and pace at which this is happening.
Rodgers’ ultimate aim is to bring all age-groups – all LFC teams – to train under one “banner” at an expanded training ground, increasing the ability for players to move from one group to another; to gain experience, training, support and develop friendships from an almost bottomless pool of talent.
Already we are seeing very positive signs of the changing style of football across the academy, stemming from the first team.
The under-21s and under-18s in particular, are doing very, very well in their respective leagues, and the systems in which the players now work seem to have enhanced players’ abilities and unite everybody to the same cause.
Kenny Dalglish was not averse to playing young players. However, one first-team debut for Raheem Sterling and a handful of appearances for Martin Kelly, Jon Flannagan and Jonjo Shelvey, seemed to be all he could stomach, preferring a seriously under-performing Stewart Downing, an unfit Charlie Adam and a whiney, ineffective Andy Carroll.
Rodgers’ “if you’re good enough, you’re old enough” philosophy, could not be more different. In the pre-season tour, he took a significant number of players from the Academy to the United States. During this time, not many would have thought that a good number of these players would be playing first-team football the following season.
Andre Wisdom, Raheem Sterling, Suso, Connor Coady, Jack Robinson, Samed Yesil, Danny Pacheco, Jerome Sinclair (now youngest ever player to make a Liverpool debut) – even Jordan Ibe with a seat on the bench – have all featured at some point in the season so far; with Wisdom, Sterling and Suso featuring in a substantial amount of games, in different competitions.
Whether Rodgers was forced to do this due to a lack of depth in the squad, or whether he genuinely wanted to give so many young players the chance to play, does not particularly matter. What matters is that many have played, many have impressed, and this serves as a motivation to the rest of the Academy that if you work hard, play well, then they might just get the call. Even Jordan Ibe, another 17-year old impressing well beyond his years at the Academy, got a call-up to the bench against LFC’s recent defeat against Southampton.
The sheer number of talented players in the Academy places automatic pressure on first-team regulars, some of whom have lost their place for different periods of time in the season. Downing often lost out to Raheem Sterling, Glen Johnson was often rested for Wisdom, and even Joe Allen was second-choice to a newly-revived, brilliant Jordan Henderson. (I have – just as a caveat – always been impressed with Henderson’s intelligence and movement on the pitch, despite his often seriously frustrating performances, which have now dissipated massively). It’s also worth noting (for all those comparing his Anfield experience to Lucas’s); I think he will be better than Lucas in four years’ time, if not beforehand.
Paradoxically, all this leads me to be extremely concerned. With Joao Carlos Teixeira, Ryan McLaughlin, Marc Pelosi, Nacho, Sama, Jordan Lussey, Trickett-Smith, Jordan Rossiter etc., still waiting to make their first-team appearance, where does this leave our transfer strategy?
It seems there is no abating in the desire to buy more players. Another defensive midfielder, another striker/winger, attacking midfielder/play-maker, two centre-backs and possible left-back, FSG and Rodgers need to be very careful they are not turning their backs on the hopes and expectations they have generated across the Academy and the football club as a whole.
How many places will there be for even regular first-team/academy players this season (Suso, Sterling, Wisdom, etc.) to play in the team next season?
This is why – contrary to what many think – Europe is so crucial.
Even the European Cup – regardless of Champions League qualification – would present a massive opportunity for our young players, and would further increase competition in the squad.
Rodgers often makes the point clear that he wants newly-signed players to be at Liverpool for their entire – or at least the majority – of their careers. If this is the case, then we will end up with disenchanted, wasted talent in the Academy, waiting to be sold onto other European competition.
If, on the other hand, FSG’s strategy is far more cynical than what I am giving them credit for, we could have a reverse situation: that young players are brought into the club, do very well at the first-team level then, when academy players are ready to make the step-up to the first-team, these first-team players brought into the club will be sold off for a substantial profit, having increased their value over a few years.
Now, business-wise, this makes brilliant sense. But it is not right.
There are only so many places in the Liverpool team. The more competitions we’re in, the more players we can use. And the more players we can use, the better our team will become, and the more other clubs will be interested in what we are doing.
Brendan is building a project: but both he and FSG better make sure that this project is not too slick, is not too well-oiled, and that there are safeguards in place for the despondency Rodgers seems so able to abate.
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