Our lack of home grown players was part of the reason we ended up with Jones, Cole and Konchesky in the summer. Also why we brought in Wilson and Shelvey who will qualify as Liverpool produced players after 3 years. As those first three have been varying levels of disaster, it makes sense to replace them with other home grown players who are actually worthy of the Liverpool shirt.
The youth players are not ready yet, and if one of them gets a chance and shines, they don't have to be registered anyway.
So I think it is obvious we will get several proven, yet young and with potential to improve, homegrown players in the summer. Hopefully this is topped off with a 'holy shit we got him' Suarez type top foreign talent to give us some extra magic.
Not sure if Wilson will count as homegrown. You have to have spent 36 months at an English/Welsh club before the age of 21, or before the end of the season in which you turn 21, to be counted as homegrown. He will turn 21 in December of his third year and he signed on the 21st of July, which i'd assume is after the date the season officially finishes. I guess it will come down to a technicality whether he counts or not.
Now the homegrown rule, where you can have a limit of 17 non-homegrown players and a maximum of 25 players over the age of 21 (players younger than 21 on 1st Jan that year not needing to be included). Our squad from the start of the season...
Non-Homegrown1. Meireles
2. Agger
3. Aurelio
4. Torres
5. Jovanovic
6. Kyrgiakos
7. Maxi
8. Kuyt
9. Babel
10. Lucas
11. Reina
12. Poulsen
13. Skrtel
14.
15.
16.
17.
Homegrown1. Jones
2. Johnson
3. Konchesky
4. Gerrard
5. Cole
6. Carragher
7. Spearing
8.
In January we obviously lost two non-homegrown players in Torres and Babel and signed Suarez and the homegrown Carroll. So we freed up one non-homegrown place and added a homegrown player - not including players we've loaned out, that is. Next season we'll have to take into account David N'Gog who no longer is under the age cut-off and becomes an extra non-homegrown player. Despite turning 21 next month, Martin Kelly won't need to be in next seasons squad because he was 20 as of the 1st of Jan this year, which is the date used as the cut-off by UEFA. Peter Gulacsi is also in the same boat. And of course we have El Zhar, Aquilani, Degen, Darby and Insua to come back from their loans, the first three being non-homegrown and the latter homegrown. So...
Non-Homegrown1. Meireles
2. Agger
3. Aurelio
4. Suarez
5. Jovanovic
6. Kyrgiakos
7. Maxi
8. Kuyt
9. Lucas
10. Reina
11. Poulsen
12. Skrtel
13. N'Gog
14. El Zhar
15. Aquilani
16. Degen
17.
Homegrown1. Jones
2. Johnson
3. Konchesky
4. Gerrard
5. Cole
6. Carragher
7. Spearing
8. Carroll
9. Darby
10. Insua
So i think if we include everyone on the clubs books right now who would need to be registered to play next season, we'd be one player over in total (26/25) and one player under the non-homegrown limit (16/17). But of course plenty of those won't be playing here next season.
As i see it, there isn't a great need for us to buy home-grown; the biggest motivation rather than out of necessity would be to sign the top homegrown talents because they're available, as availability is the main issue when procuring the best homegrown players. Even if we let Konchesky, Cole, Darby and Insua go and signed Cahill, Young and Jarvis (note that Adam isn't homegrown), one of those would only end up taking one of the 17 non-homegrown places anyway. There is no quota of homegrown players per se, it only limits your overall squad size; so if you were only needing to register 22 players, you'd only need 5 homegrown players instead of 8. We only actually have 18 players who are registered at the moment would you believe. So i'm not sure how great an issue the homegrown rules are for us yet.
Assume we manage to lose some of the so-called "deadwood", the likes of Jovanovic, Kyrgiakos, Poulsen, El Zhar, Degen, Konchesky, Darby, plus Aquilani and Insua...
Non-Homegrown1. Meireles
2. Agger
3. Aurelio
4. Suarez
5. Maxi
6. Kuyt
7. Lucas
8. Reina
9. Skrtel
10. N'Gog
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Homegrown1. Jones
2. Johnson
3. Gerrard
4. Cole
5. Carragher
6. Spearing
7. Carroll
8.
Notable Under-21's-. Gulacsi
-. Ayala
-. Wilson
-. Kelly
-. Shelvey
-. Pacheco
There would still be room to sign up to 7 new non-homegrown players and up to 8 new players in total, which is plenty, nevermind players we sign who might be under 21 and not need to be registered. It should also be remembered that the season after next Gulacsi, Ayala and Kelly will need to be registered if they're still here and will each count as homegrown.
The only homegrown player i hope we sign is Cahill. I'm not particularly fussed about some of the others.
