No I'm all for it, and would love an LFC B team in the lower leagues. But your argument was that its helped the league, and it hasn't. It's helped Barca and Real. The clubs that can afford to run a B team are few and far between, so they benefit from their youngsters getting game time and good prices for those they sell. Just because there's a few that excel elsewhere doesn't change that.
If we had it in this country we'd have 6/7 clubs who would make a B team, and those clubs would become more dominant. It might help the the national team but it wouldn't help the league. It'd help us so I'd be all for it.
Yup I agree with this but I have zero faith that in England it simply wouldn't end up benefiting a small number of big clubs but damaging the league overall. Before long you would have these 6/7 clubs in the Championship and they would end up simply destroying it.
It's not an option in the short term and I really don't see it being an option long-term.
I don't have a huge about of belief in the U21 league but there are definitely steps the Premier League could do to improve it. Off the top of my head I 'd say
1) increase the number of games - 26 games is too low a number over the course of a season
2) increase the prize money - I don't know what the current prize money is but I'd be surprised if it wasnt close to a fiver. If there was more money involved for doing well it would increase club's interest in it.
3) increase the number of games played in top stadiums - I think there is an obligation to have either 2 or 3 games in a club's main stadium; having some of the top youngsters in the country playing on poor pitches is a joke ; could easily increase this to 5 or 6
4) more PR/advertising - at the moment it gets very little publicity. If they forced Sky or whoever to show a game a week it would surely generate a lot more interest. [In a sense I'm surprised that Sky aren't all over this, you'd think they would be able to pick up the rights for a song and it would give them a lot of extra hours of content for relatively little cost - have them promote it as a chance to see the stars of tomorrow. some of the clubs seem to be keen to keep the rights in house for their own television but I would imagine if they gave Sky a 4 or 5 year deal , in 4 or 5 years the interest levels and the value would end up being substantially increased.
Anyone else have any ideas on how the reserve league could be improved?
However the major gap that's in our own hands at the moment is loan deals especially next season. I'd really hope that there is someone in the club who has responsibility for approaching clubs with players we are looking to place on loan. Someone who is identified clubs with good coaches/managers who play a suitable style of football who have a track record of giving promising youth a chance. Think of it as reverse scouting. Put together a list of the players we have highlighting their strengths and to a lesser extent the areas we would be hopeful that they would improve.
For any club we approach with an offer for one of their players, we should automatically consider if we can position a player on loan with them as a replacement. For instance if we approach a club with an offer for a left-back, we should also make sure that we mention that we might possibly be interested in sending Robinson on loan to them. Explain we have a lot of belief in the lad but feel he isn't just ready for the very top-level yet. Any club that we buy a left-back from will surely be a good fit in terms of style of play and they will automatically be down a left-back. There are obviously other considerations - would the player be interested/maybe they have 2 or 3 other options at left-back. It wouldn't be as complicated as a player swap deal but it could potentially save us some amount of money or simply put us in poll position to get a deal done. Maybe the club aren't interested in taking a left-back on loan but might be a good fit for another young player.
The other thing with any loan is that we are actively monitoring the player. Previously it seemed once a player went on loan he was pretty much forgotten. However from a few comments by McParland, I think the club has improved in this regard of late. If we have a player on loan in another league it should be part of the responsibilities of the scouts to monitor how the player is getting on.
One thing that I think limits us somewhat in the loan market is the willingness of British players to go abroad. Pretty sure in the last while N'goo and Wilson
to Scotland are the only "international" loan by a British player at the club [It's not just a Liverpool problem but when you compare the willingness of non British players to move abroad to further their career compared to international players its depressing]. Of course going abroad for a youngster of 18/19 is no piece of cake, but I'd love to see some of our youngsters in the Dutch league. It would really mature them as individuals, it would expose them to a different type of game and it would increase their marketability long-term. Of course there would be additional risks but I think in some cases the risk-reward relationship might work. It would obviously help if we had a close relationship with the club in question . The risk could be mitigated somewhat by maybe sending two or three lads to the one club. I think it would be move useful for those towards those in the older end of the youth spectrum.
It seems a lot of our purchasing activity this summer is likely to be with clubs outside Britain (which makes a huge amount of sense in terms of value for money) so I doubt we'll be able to do much of the whole placing loan players at club we have bought players from.
Overall I'd be somewhat fearful that the club has no-one actively looking for intelligent loans but are simply waiting for other managers/clubs to approach us.
