The scorers came from far afield: Portugal, Japan, Uruguay, Holland and Egypt, yet by the end of Liverpool’s 5-1 Europa League victory over Toulouse at Anfield last week, the evening carried a distinctly homegrown flavour.
Altogether, seven academy graduates were on the pitch at various points — Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Caoimhin Kelleher, Jarell Quansah, Luke Chambers, Calum Scanlon and James McConnell. Away to Bournemouth in the Carabao Cup fourth round on Wednesday night, many of those will be involved again.
Quansah, 20, Chambers and McConnell, both 19, and Scanlon, 18, have all made their senior bows this season. But no one is getting carried away.
“We always say that one thing is making your debut, another thing is winning a prize,” Pepijn Lijnders, the Liverpool assistant manager, said. “And we want young players who win prizes, not young players who make debuts. The standards are high and they should be.”
Next week it will be three years since Liverpool amalgamated the first team and academy operations on a site at Kirkby — the seniors packing up and leaving their historic base at Melwood, which has recently been taken over by the womens’ team.
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Since the move, 16 players have come through the ranks to make their senior debuts under Jürgen Klopp, whose commitment to offering opportunities to young talent has been a feature of his management.
That tally compares to 24 in the three years before the opening of the £50 million state-of-the-art facility, although context is required given that many of those youngsters featured in a League Cup tie with Aston Villa in December 2019 which overlapped with Liverpool being at the Club World Cup in Qatar and necessitated a youth team effectively playing a senior fixture. The average age of the starters in that tie was 19 years 183 days.
Similarly, the FA Cup replay with Shrewsbury Town at Anfield in February 2020 coincided with Liverpool’s “winter break” from Premier League fixtures. Klopp stuck to his guns, giving himself and his established players time off, and the club fielded another youthful line-up; the average age of the starting XI that night was 19 years 102 days.
The merger feels like a success. Trey Nyoni, 16 and signed from Leicester City in September, trained with the first team before the Toulouse game and is a perfect example of how a combined set-up works to Liverpool’s advantage with ease of access between the two centres.
A red path leads from the academy building to the first-team hub and is 300 metres long, although academy director Alex Inglethorpe likes to say that, for some, it will take ten years to travel down it.
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Lijnders believes that, ultimately, it is the vision inside the complex that is key.
“It helped for sure, but I still believe a building is a building, a rock is a rock, a chair is a chair,” he said. “It is about the people who sit in it, it is about the people who deal [with] and control the process. They make the difference.
“The club created a situation where Alex Inglethorpe is more than ten years here as academy director. Consistency.
“Jürgen Klopp has been here eight years. Vitor Matos, [the elite development coach] who is the bridge between the academy and first team, continues with the values and gives everything of his DNA. Barry Lewtas, who was here as a young coach, is now our under-23s manager.
“All these guys, me included, we really want this pathway to be open because we feel only then you create a healthy club, a club which is sustainable.
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“I remember when Curtis [Jones] came in and Milly [James Milner], Adam Lallana and Gini [Georginio Wijnaldum] were on top of him. They were speaking every time he did something wrong.
“Now Calum or Luke come in and Curtis is speaking to them in the same way that Milly was. And that is how you create a culture.”
Progress beyond Bournemouth would allow Klopp to continue to rotate and with Liverpool’s Europa League group likely to end with two dead-rubbers, there are set to be more chances for youngsters to shine.
Ben Doak, who made his debut last season, has returned to training after injury but issues continue to sideline Stefan Bajcetic, Conor Bradley and Bobby Clark, son of Lee Clark, the former Newcastle United midfielder, and Kaide Gordon.
“There are a lot of good boys coming up and it is not enough that I just tell them,” Klopp said. “From time to time, you have to show it and give them an opportunity to play. We did.”
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And then it is over to them to seize the moment.
Liverpool academy players to make first-team debut since November 11, 2020 (move to Kirkby)
Billy Koumetio 2 appearances
Conor Bradley 5
Max Woltman 2
Bobby Clark 2
Jarell Quansah 6
Kaide Gordon 4
Harvey Blair 1
Melkamu Frauendorf 2
Layton Stewart 1
Luke Chambers 2
Tyler Morton 9
Owen Beck 2
Stefan Bajcetic 21
Ben Doak 8
Calum Scanlon 1
James McConnell 1
