You'll not find me preaching that next year will be our year; it will not. But I do believe that managed properly, we have a generation of quality youngsters that will force their way into the team over the next 12 months; Suso, Sterling, Morgan, Pacheco, Robinson, Wilson, Eccleston et al Add these to the relatively young first teamers; Kelly, Coates, Shelvey, Henderson, Borini etc and the experienced but not old Suarez, Lucas, Enrique, Downing (he will improved i'm sure!), Reina (still young for a keeper), Johnson, Agger, Skrtel and you have a spine of decent experience.....inspired by Gerrard...... Not everyone will make it, I know this but given the quality at hand and Rodgers recent words of encouragement for the younger lads, I feel that this year we will see a lot of the kids blooded. While I want to be fighting for the top 4, I do not expect to finish there this year and in a large way, seeing a new generation of kids coming through will compensate somewhat for that....
One of the advantages that Rodgers has over Kenny is that he's not been given a season target of CL football. Whilst Kenny had to play the youngsters 2 seasons ago, the very fact that CL football was demanded meant that he could not safely introduce yet more youngsters last season. I beleiev that the OP is right in that we will see more of them given an opportunity during the coming season.
A little surprised you included Downing as part of our long term future. Don't get me wrong, I am not condemning him here, I think he could have a good second season like he did at all his previous clubs, especially with some of the pressure being off because all and sundrie think he is crap. What I mean is he is 28/29 and doesn't really fit a 433 system that well. He seems to be a two, three or four season club man to me too
Think he's 28? Anyway, reason I include him here is that i still think that he's a good player, despite last season. Saw an interview with Brad Friedel at the back end of last season saying that he's an excellent player but has always needed time to bed in and that his form was pretty much the same at Villa in his first year......so I won't write him off just yet......I can see him playing in the forward left of a 433 system
