What about the youth?

[RoyHodgeGone]

We don't see much talk on here aboutt he younger lads so what do we think? I've had a look at a few of the u-18 pre-season games and been very impressed with Kent and O'Hanlan. Canas looks exciting too.

 

I see Rossiter was starting for the u-21 team! That's pretty darn good for a 16 y/o who's got a long way to go physically.

[PaulMcC]

That kid from Valencia looks good. Seen him live once and he stood out.

[YNWAViking]

Really looking forward to seeing Rossiter progress furter -- a 16 year old playing on the U21 team -- now that you gotta love.

 

Seen a couple clips of Canos and Chirivella on LFC TV, and they look the part too. They came from Barcelona and Valencia this summer. Nothing like some youth snatching off Spanish teams huh.

[Ne Moe Imya]

The whole system is absolutely miles better than it was about 5-6 years ago, isn't it?

 

I know it's not popular (for obvious reasons) among the parents and the younger lads who come up from U9s, but I'm a big fan of the strategy we seem to have embarked upon of buying up all the world's best 16 year olds that we can possibly get.

 

Sterling, Suso, Ibe and Wisdom were all brought in around that age, and it's only now starting to pay off. It will continue to do so in the future, and especially with the whole club on the same page and training in the same way we're seeing players like Rossiter come through to play alongside the top players brought in from outside like Canos, Chirivella, Sinclair, etc. Not all of them are going to work out, but so far enough have that it looks very promising.

 

You can actually make out a pretty good list of our younger players (U18) who have a very good chance of making it to at least squad-player level:

Ibe

Rossiter

Sinclair

O'Hanlon

Canos

Chirivella

Ojo

 

and another list at least as long of those who have at least a reasonable chance of it (McLaughlin, Lussey, Robinson, Jones, Dunn, Yesil, Brewitt, Wilson, maybe a few others).

 

If you had made a similar list in 2008 you would have had no names on the first list, maybe Anderson, Hobbs, Insua, Nemeth and Pacheco on the second. Any way you slice it, it's much better now, and I think we'll go on to reap the rewards in years to come. Not saying we're Barca, because we're not going to see even half of those players I listed above go on to play 50 first team games, but even 3 or 4 would be brilliant.