Liverpool Youth: The Reserve Team Role and The Kids Who Could Make The Big Time

Over the past ten years, reserve team football--at Premiership clubs at least--has seen a rather big change in its use and application.

Forty years ago, when squads were perhaps half the size they are nowadays, new signings at a club like Liverpool might have been expected to ply their trade for a season or so on the reserve team, learning the way of the club and gradually building their way towards a first team spot. It would not have been unusual for twenty-something year olds to leave first team action elsewhere to play for the second string Reds team, in the hope that they could one day line up alongside such luminaries as Kevin Keegan, Terry McDermott, Kenny Dalglish, or Ray Clemence.

In the modern game of squads and huge salaries, it would be unthinkable that someone like Joe Cole would have signed this summer for his new club and gone straight to play for the reserve team.

Even as recent as a dozen years ago, there would still be many senior players lingering around the reserves, having been frozen out of the first team picture but kept around in case they were needed.

But these days the reserves team is treated as basically an extension of the Under 18's youth side, a stepping stone to senior football in the first team. With ever more demands placed on the younger players of today in terms of fitness, technical ability, and the pressure to perform immediately, the reserve team offers a place of "in-between-ness". There the 18-22 year olds can continue their learning of the game, get training at times with the stars of the first team, and, hopefully, get a small chance to shine at first team level.

Liverpool's own reserve team of late has undergone several changes. Under Rafa Benitez, the side was initially controlled by Paco Herrera before he returned to Spain and an ex-Liverpool player, Gary Ablett, was put in charge. Ablett was popular with the young lads and had to contend with several new nationalities in the dressing room under his tutelage. There was an influx of foreign youngsters who arrived under boss Benitez: the Danes Saric and Hansen, Spanish kids Antwi, Barragan, Roque and Duran amongst others, and many more besides.

Ablett led the reserve team to National Championship glory in 2008 before leaving the following year to become first team manager of Stockport County.

The man currently in charge of the Reds' second string is John McMahon, the brother of former Liverpool midfielder Steve McMahon.

McMahon is charged with the football upbringing of Liverpool's leading young lights, nurturing them to play the game the way Liverpool wants to and, hopefully, to provide Liverpool's first team with a steady supply of quality players.

Aided by goalkeeping reserve coach John Achterberg, players such as Dani Pacheco, Jay Spearing, Martin Kelly, and Dani Ayala--all of whom featured for Liverpool last season--have continued to learn the game and develop their own skills.

A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to meet a couple of members of Liverpool's backroom staff, a physio, Victor Salinas, and a reserve team coach, Antonio Gomez. Gomez has since left the club (I believe he went to Sunderland) but at the time spoke very highly of the work the team did to promote young players and the direction that then-manager Benitez wanted the under 18s and reserve teams to take.

Since Steven Gerrard managed to break through into the first team, it is often said that Liverpool has produced nobody from their Academy and reserve team good enough to play for the seniors. Probably true. Though I'd like to point out that it is also said that Rafa Benitez never gave young players a chance--definitely not true.

Richie Partridge, John Welsh, Mark Smythe, Neil Mellor, Stephen Warnock, David Raven, Zak Whitbread, James Smith, Darren Potter, Danny Guthrie, Antonio Barragan, Miki Roque, Miki San Jose, Jack Hobbs and Lee Peltier all made their Liverpool debuts under Rafa, or had only made a couple of appearances before he arrived. All played for Liverpool and all were eventually, for one reason or another, deemed not good enough for the club. Have any since then, with the possible exception of Warnock, gone on to prove him wrong? Simply put, the players who were at the club and those who came in early on in Benitez's reign were not good enough for Liverpool.

Further additions were made to the Academy, and those players are now starting to bear fruit in the under 18's team and also notably in the reserves. These are by no means all foreign additions, but rather a good mix of the best local and English talent supplemented by talented youngsters from abroad.

The aforementioned Spearing, Pacheco, and Kelly have all featured for the first team this season under new boss Roy Hodgson and can safely be put into the "first team fringe players" category--certainly above the level of reserve players, but not quite yet first team regulars. Given time I believe all three can and will become first team members of the squad.

I feel that Stephen Darby and Dani Ayala are two players who may fall just short of the required standard, while Nathan Eccleston could still go either way. Certainly he has made good strides, but with Liverpool's system of Torres plus one support player it will be very difficult for him to get first team action.

New additions Jonjo Shelvey and Danny Wilson supplement the reserves while also being on the verge of the first team.

In addition to these, there are several starlets who are perhaps within six to eighteen months of really having a go at getting their faces around the first team, and will hopefully sooner rather than later be given their chance to shine.

Tom Ince, son of ex-Reds skipper and new Notts County boss Paul Ince, is a lively and creative attacker who can play either left wing or as a second forward. Tricky and with a marvelous left foot, Ince has already made a cameo appearance for the first team and has been getting good reviews from his reserve boss McMahon. He also featured in preseason for the first team and will hope to continue his good recent form.

David Amoo started in the first competitive game under Roy Hodgson against Rabotnicki back in July, but he has since been limited to reserve football. A converted winger who used to play as a striker, Amoo is quick, can beat a man, and has been working hard on getting into the box more often. The reserve coaches feel he can be more of a goalscoring threat. He is powerful and certainly looks like he could earn the tag "impact sub" early on in his career.

Peter Gulacsi is a talented young goalkeeper who is currently out on loan to Tranmere Rovers. He has already spent time on loan at the Birkenhead club in addition to Hereford, and is an imposing and assured presence in goal who is basically fulfilling the role at Anfield of third choice stopper. I feel he has the ability to be Reina's number two, but his inexperience in top flight football counts against him and so the more experienced Aussie, Brad Jones, is instead the backup while Gulacsi, a Hungarian Under 21 keeper, gets more first team experience at the lower levels.

Victor Palsson, Icelandic and versatile, was one of the players to really catch my eye a couple of years ago. He is incredibly comfortable on the ball and has a real aura about his play. Originally a forward, he has gradually moved back down the pitch, joining Liverpool as a midfielder and now playing more often than not in the centre of defence. He is reputed to be poised for a loan move to a Championship or Football League club to gain experience. He is one I would have real hopes for to make it in the first team in the future.

There are a plethora of other players, at both reserve and under 18 team level, who have excited fans with their performances of late and who could indeed go on to make a big impact at first team level, but I feel they are at least 2 years away from having a real go at being a first team regular. Players such as Andre Wisdom, Toni Silva, Suso, Raheem Sterling, Jack Robinson, John Flanagan and Connor Coady have impressed and will no doubt get further chances to do so in the future, but the four above mentioned players are the ones I have the highest hopes for in the nearest future.

Not all the players--even the ones who look the best in the reserves team--will go on to have an impact for the first team. Just look at the likes of Adam Hammill, Paul Anderson and Adam Pepper, all of whom looked the real deal at one time or another and yet failed to muster a single Liverpool appearance between them.

While the Acadamy, led by the likes of Rodolfo Borrell, Frank McParland, Pep Segura and of course Kenny Dalglish, and the reserves with McMahon and Achterberg, can keep working with the players and improving them little by little, Roy Hodgson should rest easy knowing the youth system of Liverpool Football Club is in as healthy a position as it has been for a long time. Given patience and hard work, a steady source of new players for the first team could be at hand for years to come.