I'd agree from the little bit I saw. The Ajax boys, especially, were so comfortable with the ball. Some of the first-time control of awkward passes was superb. The two centre-backs were very quick to break from defence into any gaps that were offered too. I imagine they'll have a lot of the ball at Anfield.
I was really impressed with their left back mate. Thought he looked super comfortable on the ball, and defending.
But will they be able to cope with Raheem?
... But on the otherside I thought their right back was got at a few times tonight, and whilst the Barcelona players were - as you'd expect - extremely comfortable in possession, if it's the same guy playing right back at Anfield I will be backing Sterling. ... But then I would be against any youth team right back.
Both Barcelona and Ajax looked ahead of us to me in the same way that Sporting did. It's the point Maldini and BigBear have made - their weakest players all looked more comfortable and more tactically aware than our weakest players do. All 3 teams lacked a player that you'd be happy to see have a lot of the ball at some points in the match, and at others you'd go pressurising heavily to force the inevitable mistake. We've got one or two of them.
Like I said, whatever the result of this competition, we don't have the best academy in Europe (I actually think we've been massively underwhelming so far and haven't yet done ourselves real justice). What the next game or possibly two may show us is that we've got one or two who are amongst the very best prospects in Europe. We know a couple of them are at domestic level, but there's two who've played most games so far who I think might end up showing that they're as good as you can find in European youth football.
And that'd be nice.
