Liverpool Loan Watch

https://x.com/fabrizioromano/status/1743627602877644875?s=46&t=aLG9ncyUrtZ-QtZv0kz6SQ

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Having not had much of a look-in all season, Norris finally has had some significant game time over the last three games due to injuries and recalled loans.

He was arguably man of the match in hisnfirst league start against Play-Off chasing Notts County and, having checked their fan forum, most of them are asking the question of their manager why he hasn’t integrated a player with far more pace and technical quality than their other options at an earlier stage of the season.

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Any idea why Jaros wasn’t loaned out/what his status with us is?

Don’t see him getting guaranteed game time at Wolves

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My feeling is the majority of loans across all of football “fail” but of course we only engage with our own loans so we have an exaggerated feeling of their failure. Last season we had a very successful group of loans which was out of the norm, this season we seem to have players struggling a little more.

Best gauge for how the academy is doing is

  1. How many players are making the first team
  2. What kevel are the lads who don’t make it moving to

As it is having Jones and Trent as important first team players is great work. Then we have partial credit on Elliott. Kelleher is the backup GK. Quansah looks increasingly close to being a recognised CB in the 4 man rotation - arguably he’s out performed Konate this season. Then we also have Bradley, McConnell, Chambers, Doak and Clark who are regularly in first team training. Beck now can be added to that list also.

Just below that crop are the even younger kids like Scanlon, Koumas, Nyoni and Danns who are periodically up with the first team.

I do think we have saleable assets but they’re quite young and unestablished right now - and I don’t think we are at a stage in the rebuild where we need to sell in any kind of hurry.

The Academy is doing well - comparing to Man City and Chelsea is not really fair as their budget is many, many times bigger than ours is. We tend to focus on a smaller number of players than those teams do.

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Not fair… but it seems you are suggesting that theirs is more effective which bring us to the question of whether the Academy should be expanded.

They have more Premier League level talents but obviously very few of them are making the first team. When you see a talent like Foden struggle for years to get a game, Palmer being used as a late sub in games then immediately moving to Chelsea and becoming their best player in a matter of months - its arguably less effective in the primary ambition of the academy… making first team footballers.

There are number of reasons that Man City and Chelsea have “better” academies than ours (and theybare the only two I would above us).

Firstly is the budget, they invest vast sums into youth teams players while Liverpool try to run on a model of sustainability. Inevitably that means they are recruiting higher rated prospects.

Second is the initial catchment zone. Manchester and London obviously have a higher population and they are fairly centrally located in the country, compared to Liverpool being coastal. If you imagine your junior recruitment catchment zone being a circular area that extends put from your stadium then obviously half of Liverpool’s zone is actually the Irish Sea. Comparitively Manchester and London have no issues with this. We can put this right to some extent when the boundary opens up later in the players age (I think its 13/14) and we can go up to Preston/Blackburn to add extra players then 16 we can recruit nationwide - but most of the best talents in major areas like Manchester and London are already tied to big clubs by then - which is why we’ve spent more time foraging further north and taking players off Sunderland, Newcastle, Aberdeen and Celtic where we are financially superior.

We have kind of nibbled at the Chelsea method - signing players puely to sell them later. Awoniyi and Arroyo most obviously, we had a couple of Chinese lads who were quietly released in the U16s but it just doesn’t really seem to fit our DNA as a club.

Anyway the best of the players produced from all these Academies are the local players - Jones and Trent for Liverpool; Foden and Palmer at City; James, Tomori, Guehi at Chelsea. Investment in junior coaching and early talent identification is the best route to the first team, even if its not all that often that it works. As discussed above we just always have the limiting factor in early recruitment of operating in an area of the country that is half in the sea.

We are doing very considering the talent level required to make our first team. Alexander-Arnold, Bajcetic, Balagizi, Beck, Bradley, Chambers, Clark, Davies, Doak, Elliott, Gordon, Hill, Jaros, Jones, Kelleher, Koumas, Koumetio, Lewis, Mabaya, McConnell, Morton, Mrozek, Norris, Nyoni, Phillips, Pitaluga, Quansah, Ramsay, Scanlon and Williams are all currently contracted players who been developed by, or spent time in, our academy and been involved with the first team.

You can’t turn every player into Premier League quality - too many variables for that - but you can give then the best possible chance and I think its hard to argue that Liverpool’s academy (in conjunction with the first team’s management) doesn’t give every player the best possible opportunity.

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Which is a polite way of saying that we don’t employ the scattergun approach that those clubs do.

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If it’s these lads Reds welcome Chinese trialists - Liverpool FC

Seems like a weird favour for someone…… especially with a write up, maybe to secure funding or something lol

https://x.com/anfieldedition/status/1744298066545389676?s=46&t=aLG9ncyUrtZ-QtZv0kz6SQ

Suppose as long as he gets minutes

He’s come a long way from moaning about game time, going to Leipzig, returning and then back to the Championship.

https://x.com/jamespearcelfc/status/1744304223737508117?s=46&t=aLG9ncyUrtZ-QtZv0kz6SQ

Probably to be confirmed by club today. Suppose with Morton at Hull getting games there is trust and we are probably willing just to get him gametime at this rate.

Good deal for Hull as he is a lower team Prem standard player for now!

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I might be extremely wrong but after the episode with Portuguese U21 and the way his previous season tailed off, I got the impression that he thinks he’s better than he actually is. Maybe dropping down a league and staking his claim in a promotion-chasing side (again) would reset his mindset and give him a necessary reality check in order to get his career back on track.

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I’m not sure why so many people read into it when Jürgen himself said that Carvalho was training extremely well.

Would he be the type of manager to say he was not training well though?

Say one thing to media and another thing to Fabio himself

I’d imagine he would just not say anything.

But he was asked for an update so kinda had to say something about his progress

https://twitter.com/OtherBundesliga/status/1744290186031243347

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Nope, he could just say there’s nothing to say, as he often does.

Well his good training has got him in the championship. Hopefully next season he will push on