• You may have to login or register before you can post and view our exclusive members only forums.
    To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

The kids are alright

Status
Not open for further replies.

rurikbird

Part of the Furniture
Honorary Member
Lost 4:0 to Spurs last week. Now a full-strength U23 lineup filled with players who have ambitions of breaking into the first team this season – Brewster, Hoever, VDB, Larouci, Kelleher, Elliott, Curtis Jones, Adam Lewis – went to Chelsea and got their backsides absolutely handed to them. 3:0 scoreline doesn't do it justice; from the extended highlights I watched it should have been 7:0 or 8:0 – Kelleher single-handedly kept us in the game, Chelsea cut our defense open at will and we created next to nothing in attack. It was really looking like men against boys, and in some sense it was – Chelsea U23's fielded Batshuayi and Rudiger who obviously dominated – but the rest were young kids as far as I could tell and still looked a class apart from ours. Maybe some of our kids need to focus on improving as players instead of showing off medals they didn't earn?

@gkmacca, any thoughts?


=========
Match report: LFC U23s beaten by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge


Sam Williams
Liverpool U23s were defeated 3-0 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Monday night.
Goals either side of the break by Michy Batshuayi preceded Faustino Anjorin’s strike 16 minutes from time as the young Reds endured a difficult evening in the capital.
The hosts’ first was created and finished by two full internationals, Antonio Rudiger supplying Batshuayi to give Chelsea a deserved lead with 40 minutes on the clock, and the Belgian was on hand to power in his side’s second soon after the interval.
Anjorin then completed the scoring late on after Caoimhin Kelleher had made an outstanding save to deny Batshuayi his hat-trick.
37256eaad09775b5696f737fb1c52344f54accaa.jpeg

Liverpool managed to withstand significant early pressure, with Morgan Boyes and Ki-Jana Hoever making last-ditch blocks to thwart Anjorin and Juan Castillo respectively inside the opening 15 minutes.
A fine Kelleher stop, low to his right, frustrated Tariq Lamptey when the Chelsea defender cut inside to get his shot away following a buccaneering burst forward from right-back.
Having negotiated their way through that testing spell unscathed, Neil Critchley’s team gained something of a foothold in the game by virtue of keeping hold of the ball for longer periods.
Blues goalkeeper Jamie Cumming remained untroubled, though, and Liverpool were again indebted to Kelleher for their parity midway through the half.
Billy Gilmour’s blast from distance was destined for the top corner before the young Reds’ stopper acrobatically turned it behind.
Another crucial Boyes interception, this time ahead of Batshuayi as the striker lurked at the back post, swiftly followed and Elijah Dixon-Bonner then managed to get his toe to the ball to prevent Gilmour from making a clean connection on a shot from just inside the penalty area.
Chelsea’s dominance did finally tell five minutes prior to the break, however.
Batshuayi beat Sepp van den Berg to Rudiger’s lofted pass, then got back to his feet quickly after colliding with Kelleher on the edge of the box and coolly chipped into an empty net.
87a170e0bf12e3e71b608ea0be2d82de5a5c9ca6.jpeg

And, just two minutes into the second half, Batshuayi had his second of the evening.
Castillo found Anjorin with a low ball into the box from the left and, in turn, Chelsea’s No.10 fed the Belgian, who finished by side-footing first time into the roof of the net.
Only a terrific save from Kelleher, who spread himself bravely at the forward’s feet, stopped Batshuayi from completing a quick-fire hat-trick and Anjorin struck the crossbar on the rebound.
Critchley made a triple substitution just after the hour mark, but it was Chelsea who continued making all the running in an attacking sense.
Tariq Uwakwe linked up well with Batshuayi and crashed a shot goalwards that hit Kelleher in the face a minute before Anjorin jinked free in the area and slotted in the hosts’ third.
Harvey Elliott called Cumming into action in the closing stages after a neat first touch bought him the space to get a shot off, but Liverpool could not force a late consolation.
Liverpool U23s: Kelleher, Hoever (Williams, 63), Van den Berg, Boyes, Larouci (Gallacher, 63), Kane, Lewis, Dixon-Bonner, Jones, Elliott, Brewster (Duncan, 63).
Unused subs: Atherton, Clayton.

 
Last edited:
Haven't watched the highlights but I'll tell you what's wrong...
Van den Berg 17
Hoever 17
Elliott 16
Larouci 18
Jones 18
 
Besides Rudiger and Batshuayi, the team is pretty young too.
[article]J. Cumming 19
A. Rüdiger 26
M. Guehi 19
T. Lamptey 18
I. Maatsen 17
T. Uwakwe 19
J. Familio-Castillo 19
C. Mola 18
B. Gilmour 18
F. Anjorin 17
M. Batshuayi 25 [/article]

Mason Mount 20, Hudson-Odoi 18, Tammy Abraham 21, Reece James 19, Ethan Ampadu 18. Quite a pool of talents.
 
Besides Rudiger and Batshuayi, the team is pretty young too.
[article]J. Cumming 19
A. Rüdiger 26
M. Guehi 19
T. Lamptey 18
I. Maatsen 17
T. Uwakwe 19
J. Familio-Castillo 19
C. Mola 18
B. Gilmour 18
F. Anjorin 17
M. Batshuayi 25 [/article]

Mason Mount 20, Hudson-Odoi 18, Tammy Abraham 21, Reece James 19, Ethan Ampadu 18. Quite a pool of talents.
Well in that case they're all shit
 
Besides Rudiger and Batshuayi, the team is pretty young too.
[article]J. Cumming 19
A. Rüdiger 26
M. Guehi 19
T. Lamptey 18
I. Maatsen 17
T. Uwakwe 19
J. Familio-Castillo 19
C. Mola 18
B. Gilmour 18
F. Anjorin 17
M. Batshuayi 25 [/article]

Mason Mount 20, Hudson-Odoi 18, Tammy Abraham 21, Reece James 19, Ethan Ampadu 18. Quite a pool of talents.

They seem to have a great academy. The truly worrying thing is that their talented kids weren't even involved. Those were their 'normal' kids thrashing players that are in our first team.
 
This can't be doing any of them any good in terms of catching the eye.

Especially the ones that Klopp has bedded into first team training.

Brewster again not impressing..
 
Brewster is just back from over 12 months out, and he's only a kid still. Maybe needs a month or two in the U23s to get his form back fully
 
The youngsters are not as good as we think they are as a collective. But some of them will be good enough individually to break into the first team / provide squad death.

City and chelsea are said to miles ahead of snapping of the brightest young talents, they just don't get enough game time.
 
Brewster has just come back for from a massive injury. Remember when players were given time? Remember when you could go in the bank or a shop without being bombarded with TV/Radio/Music because everyone had attention spans longer than that of a gnat and more patience than a toddler? Everything does not have to be now, now, now. Even if today's utterly fucked society seems to demand it.
 
Society has moved on, keep up. If you are on social media everyday, you are kinda demanding it of yourself.
 
Brewster has just come back for from a massive injury. Remember when players were given time? Remember when you could go in the bank or a shop without being bombarded with TV/Radio/Music because everyone had attention spans longer than that of a gnat and more patience than a toddler? Everything does not have to be now, now, now. Even if today's utterly fucked society seems to demand it.

I'm far from a knee-jerk type, at least I hope so, and of course I'm not saying that we should give up on Brewster or any other young players based on this one game. But losing 4:0 and 3:0 to Spurs and Chelsea with the scoreline actually flattering us, does call for at least a mild bit of concern, especially since some of these kids are actually supposed to be adding to our first-team depth already this season. That's all – nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure Klopp was far from happy with what he saw.

P.S. These are 6-minute as opposed to 10 highlights that I watched on LFCTV, but gives you the idea:
 
Last edited:
I'm far from a knee-jerk type, at least I hope so, and of course I'm not saying that we should give up on Brewster or any other young players based on this one game. But losing 4:0 and 3:0 to Spurs and Chelsea with the scoreline actually flattering us, does call for at least a mild bit of concern, especially since some of these kids are actually supposed to be adding to our first-team depth already this season. That's all – nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure Klopp was far from happy with what he saw.

P.S. These are 6-minute as opposed to 10 highlights that I watched on LFCTV, but gives you the idea:

Ideally we’d be playing like the Barcelona B team Guardiola built, but I don’t think that’s the norm. Specific kids might be told to concentrate on specific areas of their game, and as good as it would be for them to be getting results as a team, it really isn’t that important. What’s important is that they try out new things, get more experience, and eventually (hopefully) get integrated into the first team squad.
Remember when we won the FA Youth Cup over a decade ago? Nobody came out of that side that was of any worth to our first team. I think Kelly might have been in there, but that was about it.
We obviously played to get a result, and we did, but that did nothing for player development.
I don’t really think it’s a good idea to be making judgements based on wins/losses.
 
Ideally we’d be playing like the Barcelona B team Guardiola built, but I don’t think that’s the norm. Specific kids might be told to concentrate on specific areas of their game, and as good as it would be for them to be getting results as a team, it really isn’t that important. What’s important is that they try out new things, get more experience, and eventually (hopefully) get integrated into the first team squad.
Remember when we won the FA Youth Cup over a decade ago? Nobody came out of that side that was of any worth to our first team. I think Kelly might have been in there, but that was about it.
We obviously played to get a result, and we did, but that did nothing for player development.
I don’t really think it’s a good idea to be making judgements based on wins/losses.


Well we desperately need a goalkeeper to be integrated into the first team squad, perhaps the idea was to develop Kelleher by letting Chelsea take shots at will.
 
Ideally we’d be playing like the Barcelona B team Guardiola built, but I don’t think that’s the norm. Specific kids might be told to concentrate on specific areas of their game, and as good as it would be for them to be getting results as a team, it really isn’t that important. What’s important is that they try out new things, get more experience, and eventually (hopefully) get integrated into the first team squad.
Remember when we won the FA Youth Cup over a decade ago? Nobody came out of that side that was of any worth to our first team. I think Kelly might have been in there, but that was about it.
We obviously played to get a result, and we did, but that did nothing for player development.
I don’t really think it’s a good idea to be making judgements based on wins/losses.

It goes without saying that the kids development is the most important thing but part of that development needs to include being competitive and winning games.

Getting thrashed by the youth teams of our rivals and being okay with it send out the wrong message.

And it's not like City and Chelsea prioritise winning over development at that level - they probably produce (homegrown / bought in, doesn't matter) more players that 'make it' than we do.
 
Kelleher looked great there in fairness.

How many players have come through and become mainstays over the past 15 years- TAA?

It looks like Spearing, Warnock, Kelly, and Flanagan is it really. All have between 45-50 games but they drifted away.

Makes you wonder why we put so much effort into the academy with so little return.

(graphic below is from 2017)

1.-Liverpool-Academy-–-Players-To-Make-A-FIrst-Team-Appearance-Since-2000.png
 
Kelleher looked great there in fairness.

How many players have come through and become mainstays over the past 15 years- TAA?

It looks like Spearing, Warnock, Kelly, and Flanagan is it really. All have between 45-50 games but they drifted away.

Makes you wonder why we put so much effort into the academy with so little return.

Because every now and then, you get a Carragher, McManaman, Gerrard, Owen or Fowler.

Or Alexander-Arnold.
 
Kelleher looked great there in fairness.

How many players have come through and become mainstays over the past 15 years- TAA?

It looks like Spearing, Warnock, Kelly, and Flanagan is it really. All have between 45-50 games but they drifted away.

Makes you wonder why we put so much effort into the academy with so little return.

(graphic below is from 2017)

1.-Liverpool-Academy-–-Players-To-Make-A-FIrst-Team-Appearance-Since-2000.png
So there was a moment in time when Sheyi Ojo was more successful than Trent Alexander-Arnold ...
 
How much does it cost to run a footy academy? If it's less than five million a year, and it defo is, we could pay for the next 20 years by selling TAA

And by we, I mean the lizards. You think the lizards don't have calculators?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom