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Post match thoughts - FA Cup

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Zlate

Zlate

BOBBY FIRMINO!
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Bogdan - Needs to never pull on the gloves again, I'd rather Enrique be our goalkeeper.

Randall - I quite like this kid, seems quite assured with the ball, likes to attack, could've had better end product in the final third but he'll learn with more games.

Ilori - Did well enough considering he just came back to us from Villa, covered well, didn't really put a foot wrong all game.

Enrique - It's time for him to go, out of position quite a lot which is to be expected as he's a LB, has lost a few yards of pace and not worth the amount of money he's on.

Smith - I like this kid also, good back up to Moreno, loves to get forward, did well for his goal, should be starting all our cup games.

Stewart - Nothing really spectacular, tried a few long range shots, nearly gave away a penalty, can't really see him breaking into our team in the future.

Brannagan - Did quite well, is quite a thin kid, would need to put on some size to have any chance of making it for us. Job done, can't complain.

Teixeira - I'd love this kid to get more game time and a chance in the premier league. Has nice control, passing & technique. He was one of our better players on the pitch.

Kent - There is a player in there. He's got great quick feet, skills also, however he needs better decision making and it'll come with proper coaching, think he's a great prospect and has a chance to make it.

Sinclair - Scored a goal, took his chance well but didn't really offer anything and his performance was quite below par. Still seems quite a while off our first team, personally I don't think he'll make it with us.

Benteke - I rate Benteke, just not sure if he's suited to our style and how Klopp wants to play. Didn't do much besides 1 header on target which was well saved. Didn't really pose much of a threat, quite a disappointing performance considering he was our most senior player and we needed him to stand up and lead by example.

Subs:
Chirivella - Started off really shaky, misplaced a pass and looked really nervous. Settled down a bit as the game went on, needs time, can't see him banging on the first team door any time soon though.

Ojo - Did quite well when he came on, took on his man, put in a few crosses, has some pace to burn, has a chance to be in the first team squad and a possible future with us.

Maguire - Only got 15 minutes so it's tough to judge on that performance but did well.
 
Not sure I will ever warm to Benteke.

The young lads did ok. I'm still suprised by the line up as a few of the kids that started are just returning from injuries. Shows the lack of depth and fitness in our team at the moment.


Pedro looked promising last year and I'm suprised Wilson didn't get a run out.

I'm a little annoyed that Sinclair got a run. He obviously has no intention of signing with us unless he gets a bumper pay. He's contacted Aids of the Ward variety and can quite frankly do one! Other than Dunn are there any other choices? Would have been nice to see Yesil instead of Benteke.

Hopefully we can add some more quality befoRe the replay.
 
Just curious, how much are these young players paid? £5k a week? I read someone saying the Exeter guys get paid £30-50k a year?

That's a huge disparity, and alot of money for reserve football. Some of these guys will never make it. With some good financial planning they could play 3-5 years of reserve football and fuck off to some Asia countries and be set for life.
 
I think of all the youngsters, Brannagan certainly helped his case the most. Teixeira's skill is impressive - he can pick a pass and work his way out of tight corners and traps like Houdini, and Kent has a lot in his locker - he certainly likes to showboat a bit and I get the feeling he's trying too hard to impress with his skill at the expense of playing simpler passes to help the team. Unfortunately, these chaps had a harder time to shine because of Benteke's stillness.

Smith did better than Randall, showing slightly better end product, and at least he tried to get closer to his man. Randall looked like he needed Klopp screaming in his face more often to tell him to get close and shut down his man to prevent crosses into the box. Can't fault his desire to go up and help the team's attacks though.

Overall the game looked like a bunch of U21s plus Teixeira carrying a trio of unfit (Enrique), underwhelming (Benteke) or un-fucking-believable (Bogdan) senior players.

I wondered when these youngsters last played a competitive game at any level. Not that I'm using this as an excuse for any of their performances; I was just curious about where their match fitness / sharpness might be at, not taking into consideration the friendlies against Fleetwood and Morecambe in the last fortnight. So I looked around in transfermarkt. Here's the breakdown:

Kent -- Jan 2, vs Crewe (Leage One, for Coventry)
Smith -- Jan 2, vs West Ham (Premier League)
Maguire, Chirivella, Sinclair, Ojo** -- Dec 21, vs Norwich U21s (U21s)
Ilori -- Dec 21, vs Arsenal U21 (U21s, for Aston Villa)
---
Brannagan -- Dec 6, vs Everton U21s (U21s)
Randall -- Dec 2, vs Southampton (League Cup)
Teixeira -- Oct 28, vs Bournemouth (League Cup)
Stewart -- Sep 1, vs Newport (Football League Trophy)

** Ojo actually played on Dec 28 for Wolves vs Charlton in the Championship, but for only 2 minutes as a late sub.

*** Brannagan, Randall, Teixeira were all with the first team and sometimes on the bench but they didn't get any minutes for a month or more. They also didn't drop down to play for the U21s, so their last competitive games were in either October or December. Says something about the talent level of Brannagan and Teixeira though, that they still easily looked head and shoulders above the rest on their cohort who had been playing a lot more recently.
 
Some players are groomed for the first team from a young age like Sterling or Owen, but thats rare. For most reserve team players there is a degree of luck involved, you have to get a chance through injuries to senior players or a fixture pile up. Todays game was that opportunity for some of our players and you would have to say a few of them didnt look out of place

Smith, Brannagan, Texeira, Illori and Kent showed enough to make me think we will see more of them before the season is out. I expect they will all start the replay
 
Not to impressed with Randall, Stewart and Sinclair. The rest were decent. The kids that is, as the experienced players were pretty awful.
Kent showed promise and Ojo looked very good.

I'd say Smith, Ojo and Tex are closest to being involved with the first team on a regular basis.
Brannagan need to bulk up a bit and Chirivella isnt quite ready yet. Great prospects though.
 
Dropping the ball at the feet of an opponent, letting a corner go straight in - Bogdan appears to be compiling a showreel of unforgiveable goalkeeping gaffes. Never pick him again, the fool.

As I said before the game, the reserve league has many flaws, and one of them is keeping the kids away from playing against older, tougher, more street savvy opponents. And that certainly showed yesterday. If Klopp goes with the same squad for the replay, he needs to pick a senior player - maybe Lucas - who'll talk to the others throughout the game. Benteke was an utter waste.
 
Bogdan is as bad as Brad Jones, should not have played last night, and should never play again. Benteke looks totally forlorn. We were lucky to draw.
Enrique's career is finished. Ilori won't have one. There is no Robbie Fowler, Micheal Owen, Carragher, Gerrard or Steve McManaman in our current youth setup; there isn't even a Neil Mellor
 
2-2 is a good result for a bunch of rookies against hardened league players. I agree about Sinclair, he shouldn't have got near that game. Wonderful cameo from Ojo, while this match just served to compound the theory that Smith, Tex and Kent have big futures. Smith has had a brilliant turn around of fortune and he looked a cut above every other player out there. Tex is nearly 23 now though, so while I'm a massive fan, I don't think he'll make it with us, which is a massive shame.

Bogdan is poor, he'll be gone at the end of the season, I've always liked Enrique but there's something behind the scenes there, no one wants to touch him, including our own managers. As for Ilori, he looked like he was severely lacking match practice and his physique is a concern, but he had a good 50 minutes, winning alot of important headers and clearances. I was quietly impressed with Stewart btw, he looked fairly composed and controlled things for spells.
 
gkmacca said:
Dropping the ball at the feet of an opponent, letting a corner go straight in - Bogdan appears to be compiling a showreel of unforgiveable goalkeeping gaffes. Never pick him again, the fool.

As I said before the game, the reserve league has many flaws, and one of them is keeping the kids away from playing against older, tougher, more street savvy opponents. And that certainly showed yesterday. If Klopp goes with the same squad for the replay, he needs to pick a senior player - maybe Lucas - who'll talk to the others throughout the game. Benteke was an utter waste.
Click to expand...

As the senior pro and an established international you'd have thought Benteke would have been assigned that role. But if there was a scintilla of leadership, encouragement or cajoling I must have missed it. I suppose you can also lead by example but he never gets stuck in, he makes Balotelli look like a paragon of endeavour!
 
The whole academy/reserve set up needs a complete overhaul. It's become a haven for lazy, aimless players like Stewart (he's 22, for god's sake, he doesn't look like he's been in a gym for a year and he's just taking the piss), the odd player of promise who's been led astray by wild promises from agents (Sinclair) and far, far, too many mediocre (not average, but mediocre) kids who are just making up the numbers. Yes, we've got a few very promising kids like Wilson, Kent, Ojo, Brannagan and Rossiter, but only their own hunger for success pushes them on, nothing else, which is why they're all behind schedule in terms of where their talent should take them.

One problem is the club's attitude to the distribution of authority. It went from being Heighway's personal kingdom (which was fine for a long time, but in the end, much as I like Stevie, dealing with him from Melwood was like trying to deal with Kurtz in Heart of Darkness) to being dominated by Rodgers (who stamped his signature on every facet and level of the set up, leaving it as his very dubious legacy). So Klopp and Inglethorpe need to re-think the dynamic very carefully.

The coaches need improving. Take Michael Beale (under 21s) and Neil Critchley (under 18s). They're Rodgers' yes men: they preach a philosophy that results don't matter, league position doesn't matter, only things like technique, team shape and style matters. So they've created a context in which hardly anyone gives a toss about anything. There's no embarrassment, no shame, no anger, no frustration when things go badly. If a player is self-motivated, fine, but if they need a push, they don't get it. What the hell is the point?

Local scouting needs huge improvement. It was improved briefly when Kenny came back because he knew how to do it. As soon as he left all the old failings returned. It's a really competitive catchment area and we are crap at covering it.

Foreign scouting also needs improving. If you're going to bring in a foreign kid, help him settle, teach him English, invest several years in his general development, you really need to feel he's an exceptional talent. Of course it's difficult and risk-laden, but we've way too many foreign kids who were merely solid when they came and are now barely up to second division standards. And you can't even recoup some of the investment in them by selling them to Spanish or other European clubs because we've rendered them unsuited to most playing styles.

And on top of all that, there's the under 21s/under 18s leagues, which are useless. Other clubs have the same problem, of course, but more initiative needs to be shown in bypassing it whenever possible, seeking out friendlies with more experienced teams, staging mini tournaments, and generally finding much greater competition to sharpen up these kids.

And if you're going to loan players, loan them to managers who are genuinely keen to use them. And take control of the process by making it serve our needs at least as much as theirs. The current loan policy is barely coherent and has damaged more futures than helped them.

Inglethorpe is a good guy who deserves a lot of faith and trust, but he and Klopp really need to get together and re-draw the blueprint.
 
Ojo certainly has the potential to be a first team player, and a very good one aswell.
 
Great post Macca.
Weren't we just really lucky with Gerrard, Carragh, Fowler and Owen coming through?
I mean in the last 15 years only Sterling and to a lesser extent Flanagan have come through from youth set up to first team.

The problem we have is for me more the fact that we can afford to be lazy nowadays. We spend 30m per player basically so the need for homegrown talent seems less and less. Even the clubs like Everton, Southampton and West Ham who were always good at progressing kids are bringing hardly anyone through, same at United and Arsenal. The clubs bringing kids through are all down the leagues where the need to nurture talent is greater. That seems to be the sad truth of it to me.
 
Its worth pointing out that Rafa reduced the age of the players stepping up to Melwood and the reserves. You can hardly blame players for stagnating when they're brought through to the big set up at 16/17 and they're still in the wildnerness 4-5 years later.
 
Herr Onceared said:
Great post Macca.
Weren't we just really lucky with Gerrard, Carragh, Fowler and Owen coming through?
I mean in the last 15 years only Sterling and to a lesser extent Flanagan have come through from youth set up to first team.

The problem we have is for me more the fact that we can afford to be lazy nowadays. We spend 30m per player basically so the need for homegrown talent seems less and less. Even the clubs like Everton, Southampton and West Ham who were always good at progressing kids are bringing hardly anyone through, same at United and Arsenal. The clubs bringing kids through are all down the leagues where the need to nurture talent is greater. That seems to be the sad truth of it to me.
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Sterling came from QPR when he was 15 I think?
 
Herr Onceared said:
Great post Macca.
Weren't we just really lucky with Gerrard, Carragh, Fowler and Owen coming through?
I mean in the last 15 years only Sterling and to a lesser extent Flanagan have come through from youth set up to first team.

The problem we have is for me more the fact that we can afford to be lazy nowadays. We spend 30m per player basically so the need for homegrown talent seems less and less. Even the clubs like Everton, Southampton and West Ham who were always good at progressing kids are bringing hardly anyone through, same at United and Arsenal. The clubs bringing kids through are all down the leagues where the need to nurture talent is greater. That seems to be the sad truth of it to me.
Click to expand...

I guess you're always lucky when two or three REALLY good kids come through, but Gerrard and co benefited hugely from Heighway's guidance (he made them better people and fiercer competitors as well as better players) and much more interaction with the first team - and a more competitive reserve league).

As far as local scouting is concerned, we've shown with the local commercial and community programmes that we CAN be super-professional and imaginative when we want to be. But as you say, there's a laziness there when it comes to scouting. Some other clubs have used some initiative, though, to improve the situation. One thing Southampton did, for example, was to react to the fact that they were still operating according to a working class remit when the reality was they were surrounded with some pretty prosperous areas, so they started scouting the public school leagues, and that's one reason why they've brought through some very good but somewhat 'posh' young players.

I think what Kenny understood was that, no matter what the Man Citys can do with state of art youth complexes etc, you still can't over-estimate the importance of winning the trust of the families. Most kids will go to Kirkby if we offer them a place, but too many parents don't fancy them going there as opposed to Everton or one of the manc clubs. They don't trust us, they don't think we'll bring their kids on and they don't think we've got as good as coaches as our competitors.
 
Everton have had their issues aswell though at scouting level and as far as winning the trust of the families. A guy I know coaches a kids team and did scout for Everton for years until recently. He's a big Evertonian too, so as you can imagine it's a dream job, he loves developing kids and has two lads of his own who he's brought through, he also had to go through watching one of them retire aged 9yrs old, due to Crohn's disease, but it didn't temper his passion for scouting other young lads in the area and bringing them through to Finch Farm.

His reason for quitting, was that Everton were sending him all over the North West while refusing to cover his travel, he got paid buttons for doing it anyway but didn't mind because he loved the role, but already on a tight wage, he was struggling to cover the costs of getting to and from games across the weekend. He went to Everton about it numerous times and was told to basically put up or shut up. I know of many families who've walked away from Everton and Liverpool because they were basically working on weekly agreements, not knowing if the next week would be the last. And being told bluntly they weren't good enough, not a "hard luck son, you're a good player but we think it might be better for your development if you move elsewhere", instead a pretty damning "you're not going to make it".
 
We can add Rossiter to the list of youths that have a big chance. From what I can gather he's not just a really talented midfielder, but already a leader, and possessed of that kind of serious driven character that will take him as far as he wants to go. It is a real shame he's injured. He can't be that far away from coming back can he?
 
mark1975 said:
Everton have had their issues aswell though at scouting level and as far as winning the trust of the families. A guy I know coaches a kids team and did scout for Everton for years until recently. He's a big Evertonian too, so as you can imagine it's a dream job, he loves developing kids and has two lads of his own who he's brought through, he also had to go through watching one of them retire aged 9yrs old, due to Crohn's disease, but it didn't temper his passion for scouting other young lads in the area and bringing them through to Finch Farm.

His reason for quitting, was that Everton were sending him all over the North West while refusing to cover his travel, he got paid buttons for doing it anyway but didn't mind because he loved the role, but already on a tight wage, he was struggling to cover the costs of getting to and from games across the weekend. He went to Everton about it numerous times and was told to basically put up or shut up. I know of many families who've walked away from Everton and Liverpool because they were basically working on weekly agreements, not knowing if the next week would be the last. And being told bluntly they weren't good enough, not a "hard luck son, you're a good player but we think it might be better for your development if you move elsewhere", instead a pretty damning "you're not going to make it".
Click to expand...

Penny wise , pound foolish !
 
I think we struck gold with Fowler, McManaman, Owen, Carra and Gerrard. Maybe it was a sign of the times, before the big boom of everyone spending big and transfer fees spiraling out of control, it can't be a coincidence that at the same time United were also having their boom with the Neville's, Giggs, Beckham, Butt and Scholes.

I do think though that we haven't developed as many as our competitors in recent years. Perhaps that's down to changing manager too often. United and Arsenal have been fairly stable, while City and Chelsea operated with a different philosophy when it comes to youth development (ie, throw money at loads of young talent and then loan it out). Look at Smith, he had no future not too long ago and now he's on the fringes of the first team thanks to a differing outlook. Maybe for many it's just been a case of circumstance going against them. We have brought through some fairly talented players - Mellor, Warnock, Flanagan, and then there's those we purchased at a young age who have pushed on in some sense - San Jose, Ayala, Suso. How many have fallen by the wayside though? Look at Sinclair now, he wants out through sheer misguidance and possibly poor communication due to unrest at the club. Whatever people think of him, we shouldn't be in a situation were kids are now holding us to ransom.

I have absolutely no disagreement with Klopp over yesterday, his hands were tied and it was more or less forced on us to play that team. It's not arrogance, nor is the result a disgrace, it's just a guy and his players being the victim of transition. Give it a year and we'll be steady, players will be used to the philosophy and the training, we'll have weeded out those who aren't good enough and hopefully added some quality, and these lads will be all the better for the experience of stepping in. Everything Klopp is alluding to - loan, transfer and contractual strategy, is right in essence, but it's not something that's going to change overnight and it's going to warrant some difficult, unpopular decisions for the greater good, like yesterday.
 
doctor_mac said:
We can add Rossiter to the list of youths that have a big chance. From what I can gather he's not just a really talented midfielder, but already a leader, and possessed of that kind of serious driven character that will take him as far as he wants to go. It is a real shame he's injured. He can't be that far away from coming back can he?
Click to expand...

He looks like another Jay Spearing to me
 
JayTunnel11.gif
 
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