It is ridiculous to call the likes of Ibe, Sterling, Widom and Suso Championship/League 1 level players. They are all under 20 FFS! Playing at that level at their age is an achievement. Of course though if aplayer doesnt have 50 international caps by the age of 13 he will clearly never make it. Sacking Borrell was dum and it wil come back to bite us on the arse, when where ever he goes starts to benefit in the same way we have. Pissed right off with this news
Haha I knew you would be since you're a big follower of the u18/21. It's a shame but I'm sure there are valid reasons and replacements in place ...
Our u21s is filled with 18 year olds able to play 3 years above their level, and our u18s is filled with 16 year olds. Then in their late teens and early twenties they get loaned out for further development. I really cant see why they could be seen as doing a bad job. Stilll pissed right off.
I agree mate - this system has only been in place for 4 years but the progress has been extremely good. It will take another 5-10 years for us to really reap the benefits.
If you look at our U21's and our U18 team it's full to the brim with talent. McLaughlin, Texieira, Wisdom, Ibe, Sama, Kent, Brannagan, Jones, Sterling, Suso, Robinson, Rodden, Rossiter, Tricket-Smith, Yesil, Jerome Sinclair and that's just off the top of my head. Even though it's too early to judge, for me all of these players will reach PL level at some point in the future. And most of this good work has been overseen and coached by Borrell, I seriously think it will come back to bite us on the ass if a top team gets hold of him, him and Rafa we owe a lot to.
There better be good reasoning gor this. If this does come down to the harogance of one man trying to put his own people in rather than looking after the best interests of the club, then I am going to lose all respect for Brendan. Youth players all had so much respect for Borrell and saw him as a coaching God. Good luck to us getting someone better in. Just as we seem to be making some progress, we always seem to make some ridiculous decision that ****s us right up. What Kind of a bunch of cocksucking asspipe bastards run our club FFS!!!! As you might have guessed, Im not entirely happy about this news
At the same time while sacking Borrell will cost us majorly, it has only been a matter of weeks since BR was praising the youth setup. He was happy with the academy so far. A couple weeks ago everything was amazing yet a few days before the derby they've been sacked. Something isn't right. Redbrynner, I seriously doubt it has anything to do with the job they've been doing and more with some incident or problem that's suddenly come up. In the end that is worse as they were doing a good job. A lot of rumours flying around that they were negotiating with City or NYRB. Just hope we get in someone of that calibre to oversee the academy. Maybe a quick phone call to Rafa might be in order... He would know what to do, and his perfectionist nature would override the fact that he doesn't even work for us
Totally agree, there must be a good reason - Borrell recently got moved in to the academy director role and Alex Inglethorpe replaced him as U21 coach and who is continuing Borrell's amazing work. I just think right now our academy is the best it's been in my lifetime, and for me Suso will be that player we've waited for from our academy in recent times, and I'm sticking my neck out in saying that but he'll be everything we expected from Pacheco. I guess I'll reserve further judgement until we find out the reasoning, best wishes to Borrell for wherever he ends up.
Let's just put a bit of perspective on this. We know that both FSG and Rodgers are committed to a youth policy. I'm sure the Academy will be placed in very capable hands
I saw this happenning when Borrells role was changed. I completely agree with you about Suso aswell, the guy is turning his massive potential into massive talent. And lucky for us he loves Liverpool
You make good sense, there, Sacking him cannot have anything to do with performance. It has to be something else. If he goes anywhere I hope it is to Napoli to work with Rafa, and away from out rivals in the premier league.
Some mumblings of a tapping up job by MCFC as their new DOF Txiki and Borrell have strong barca ties. Probably have to see what happens next.
Come on now spit it out what do you really feel about this? I will be very disappointed if there's no good reason ... no scratch that .... I am disappointed even if there is a good reason. It's got to be unprofessional conduct or suchlike, but both of them? After McParland did that great Mail article as well!! [joke]
Maybe the club getting in first, sacking them before they resign. There's only Ayre now who's still left from the previous regime!
Just throwing this in there. Lets say it is BR getting his own men in there. How is that arrogance if the existing men are there because a previous manager decided he wanted his own men in there and did exactly the same thing? A manager lives and dies on results. This manager is also being told by his bosses that he better rely more on youth than expensively bought stars. I'd want it set up exactly as I wanted if my job relied on it. Then I only have myself to blame if I fail. Speculation of course. Do we think all these academies being opened on different continents has a factor in this. A new global strategy yada yada..
Just gonna put this out there, In the 90's we had a pretty average team which gave an opportunity for youth players to come through and establish themselves in the first team. From 2000 onwards we were regularly competing/winning in the CL with a very good squad, this makes it very difficult for youth players to get in the first team as they have little or no time to get up to the standard required. If you look at Utd you see the exactly the same thing, the class of 92 had the opportunity to come through in what was an aging but good team and given time to establish themselves, but since the success of that team im struggling to think of any player utd bought through from the academy. Thats the problem with teams trying to compete in every game they can't afford to let players make mistakes they need to in order to improve. Saying that we have again had an average team for the last few years and a few youth players have been given a chance, Sterling probably being the best of the bunch, but non of them have grasped the opportunity and taken the step up. Perhaps its a mentality issue with academy players thinking they have already made it when the reality is a huge leap in performance is needed for them to compete in the first team. Now that the team is competing again I think its unlikely we will get many players coming through. Sterling didn't quite make the improvement needed in a position we were short so perhaps he never will, Ibe needs more experience, wisdom has to compete against 4 experienced CB's and Suso though technically great may never have the physicality for the PL.
I realised that but they need to be led by someone still, they shouldn't just be put in full charge of a department.
I know where you're coming from but there's actually a simpler measure. How many of the youth players from the last decade have left us and gone on to be top level players? None. That shows it wasn't just the strength of the first team holding them back.
FSG are massive on youth development - it's the cornerstone of their strategy, both here and with the Red Sox. Whilst this news may be very disappointing and come as a shock, I'm sure FSG will remain totally committed and have plans in place to maintain the current high level, and then improve it to make it the best in the world.
