Frank McParland may be an unfamiliar name among Liverpool supporters but amid the chaos and comedy that marked the club's Europa League tie with Young Boys on Thursday, he more than most should have felt a great sense of satisfaction. After all, it is in his role as Liverpool's academy director that the 53-year-old propelled Andre Wisdom, Suso and Raheem Sterling, all of whom impressed in Berne, on the path to glory.
Not that McParland would see it that way. Modest, warm and funny, the lifelong Kopite is not a man who takes praise well, yet given the rise in particular of Sterling, the 17-year-old winger who is practically assured of starting against Manchester United on Sunday following a sparkling start to the season that has seen him called up to the senior England squad, it is rightly due. And more may be heading McParland's way given how his importance to Liverpool's future has grown following the club's clumsy dealings in the recent transfer window.
Andy Carroll was allowed to join West Ham in a loan deal on loan and a replacement striker – namely Clint Dempsey – was not signed, leading to Liverpool's principal owner, John Henry, stating the club's desire to put an "emphasis on developing our own players" in an open letter to disgruntled supporters, and to Brendan Rodgers suggesting that the lack of depth to his squad provided "a number of boys" with an opportunity to break into the first team, a claim that was put into action against Young Boys and had led to a collective shifting of eyes towards the academy setup in Kirkby.
"All the staff here put themselves under pressure to produce," said McParland when asked if he feels under more pressure now than at any other time since becoming academy director in 2009. "We're self motivated and will work through thick and thin to do what's best for the kids.
"We believe we're doing it the right way – the kids understand tactically better now, they still have work to do when they go with the first-team but the work is getting done properly and there's no one better than Brendan to make the necessary tweaks once they are with him."
Rodgers' heralded work as Chelsea's youth-team manager certainly provides encouragement that he be trusted to nurture young players provided to him by Liverpool's academy, with the transition process aided further by the similar nature of playing styles adhered to at youth and first-team level.
Rodgers wants Liverpool to perform in a high-tempo, high-pressing, possession-dominated manner and, as McParland outlines, that is how every one of the club's age groups, from under-nines up to the under-21 side –which has replaced the reserve team as part of the Premier League's elite player performance plan – have played ever since the former manager Rafael Benítez overhauled the academy three years ago.
Unhappy with the youth setup despite it having brought through Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard and provided the platform for Liverpool to win the FA Youth Cup in 2006 and 2007, Benítez hired McParland as academy director, having previously deployed him as the club's chief scout, and brought in José "Pep" Segura as the academy's technical director and Rodolfo Borrell as the Under-18s coach from Barcelona's acclaimed La Masia academy.
"The programme introduced in 2009 is the Spanish way of playing, which is about pressing hard, keeping the ball and being verycomfortable in possession," McParland said. "All the coaches work to that plan.
"We have an established style in regards to how we play and fortunatelyit's not far away from what Brendan wants to do with the first team. I've had five or six meetings with him and he's always been positive about the players here. He is happy with our results and I am sure he will only want to influence that further."
That may be the case but there is no denying the uncertainty currently surrounding Liverpool's youth setup. Segura recently announced his resignation after, it is believed, missing out on a senior role at the club in the wake of Damien Comolli's sacking as director of football. And the Frenchman's departure, while not a loss at first-team level, is rued by McParland, who described him as having being "heavily involved" in recruitment at youth level. Notably, not a single academy player has been signed since Comolli left last April.
That issue should be resolved now Liverpool's new scouting team is in place but there remains a question mark over just how capable the academy is of supplementing Liverpool's first team in the short, medium and long term. Sterling is an undoubted star in the making, and has been since he was signed from QPR as a 15-year-old in 2010, but the same cannot necessarily be said of fellow graduates Martin Kelly, Jack Robinson, Jon Flanagan and Adam Morgan, all of whom have appeared for the first team in the past three years.
Indeed, the last player to progress from being an academy member to first-team regular was Gerrard, with the club captain making his senior debut in 1998. Why does McParland think Liverpool's youth system has not produced another Gerrard since then? "To produce another Steven Gerrard is difficult because his mum and dad produced Steven Gerrard, not the coaches here," he said.
"Steven was born to be a top player, but what we're better at now is producing players that can play in the Premier League and in the next three or four years we'll have a lot more players come through.
"This is the fourth year of the project and already we've had the youngest player to have played for Liverpool in Jack Robinson, the third youngest in Raheem Sterling, and then there is Flanno [Flanagan] and Morgan, who are both in the top 20. So in the history of a club that is 120 years old, four of its youngest players have come through the current youth setup. That shows we're making an impact and pushing the kids on quicker. The target is to have 50 per cent of the first-team squad coming through the academy."
For McParland, who like Gerrard was raised in Huyton, a key part of the development process is the NextGen series, the Uefa-sanctioned under-19s competition now in its second year. Liverpool, who reached the semi-finals last season, opened with a 3-2 defeat to the holders, and Group Five rivals, Internazionale, on Wednesday.
"It's about playing best against best and is designed for the next level, so when kids push through to the first team they are used to doing what the first team do," said McParland. "There's only one team that matters at Liverpool and that's the first team. No matter who has been the manager that's been our philosophy."
The NextGen Series is a Uefa-sanctioned youth competition that, now in its second season, comprises of 24 clubs from across Europe, including Barcelona, Juventus, Ajax, Arsenal, Sporting Lisbon and current holders Internazionale.
The teams are split into six groups of four with the knockout stages taking place at the start of 2013 ahead of the final in March.
"NextGen has opened everyone's eyes to how important international club football is to these players," said tournament co-founder Justin Andrews. "We're now in season two of our competition and are already seeing the benefits this tournament brings to European football in general."
