- A Liverpool academy star has now made his first-team debut at the age of 16
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There is a framed picture on the walls of Liverpool‘s training base in Kirkby which hangs purposefully in the areas frequented by academy stars. Taken just before the turn of the millennium, the photograph acts as the ultimate inspiration for the stars of tomorrow.
Squinting down the camera in the snap were seven homegrown players: Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman, David Thompson, Dominic Matteo, Jamie Carragher and, then a fresh-faced teenager, Steven Gerrard.
Last year, Liverpool’s media team sensed an opportunity to recreate a similar image with new protagonists. After the Reds won the Carabao Cup with a youthful team at Wembley, 11 of the latest academy success stories posed with the final trophy of the Jurgen Klopp era.
Trent Alexander-Arnold in a knee-brace – he did not play that day – is the best known, but also present were Jarell Quansah, Conor Bradley, Jayden Danns, Stefan Bajcetic and Trey Nyoni to name just five. Who knows how iconic that image may one day be.
Mail Sport dubbed them the ‘Kindergarten Kop’ while others called them ‘Klopp’s Kids’. It might not have carried the global significance of Klopp winning a sixth European Cup crown or a first Premier League title, but that trophy meant just as much to many inside the club.
Since then, the Reds have added another star to their academy after raiding Chelsea for exciting winger Rio Ngumoha. Arne Slot threw the 16-year-old into his starting XI for his first-team debut in Liverpool’s 4-0 win over Accrington Stanley on Saturday, while Danns came off the bench to score his third FA Cup goal for the club, and Nyoni got more minutes under hie belt. Liverpool’s eye for young talent seems to only be getting better.
For many academy coaches, this is decades of hard work coming to fruition. And 11 months on from that memorable day at Wembley, Liverpool are plotting how they can create another dream team of academy starlets.
‘High performance is not about hitting your peak once but about maintaining a level of excellence over a long period,’ Alex Inglethorpe, the Liverpool academy director, told the High Performance Podcast last year.
That quote is a perfect illustration of the Reds talent factory. Celebrate the successes, toast to the 42 academy stars who made their first-team debut under Klopp… but then move on to the next generation. One summit reached, now another peak to scale.
Liverpool have been forced to adapt their academy policy in recent years, another protracted symptom of Britain leaving the European Union. In the last two years alone, they have poached five talented youngsters from fellow Premier League academies.
Why does Brexit impact this? To cut a long story short, the Immigration Act of New Year’s Day 2021 ended the automatic right of EU nationals to work in the UK. Instead, the country now has a points-based immigration system. It meant signing youngsters from abroad became tough.
The last such import was Bajcetic, who signed a matter of hours before the new rules became law. Since his £224,000 move on New Year’s Eve 2020, the Spaniard has broken into the first team and excelled in 2022-23, playing in eight straight Premier League games.
He missed most of last season with a long-term injury and has now been sent on loan to Red Bull Salzburg. ‘I hope it will be a big year for him because he’s a very talented player and I think he could become a very important player for us,’ said Arne Slot earlier this season on Bajcetic, 20.
But since that Bajcetic deal, Liverpool have traded closer to home. You might not have known Ngumoha or Nyoni before today, nor Alvin Ayman, Amara Nallo and Owen Harvey, but every youth football expert in England did.
While first-team dealings have been limited, these signings have been the talk of academy communities. ‘They are not here to stockpile talent, they are interested in providing a pathway,’ says a representative of the Secret Scout, a site with grand expertise in academy football.
Led by head of senior academy recruitment Matt Newberry, who also sits in on first-team recruitment meetings, Liverpool have invested heavily in local talent-spotting around England but also Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Bradley was lured from County Tyrone youth side Dungannon Swifts in his mid-teens after being watched for more than a year, while Ben Doak was poached from Celtic’s academy for around £600,000 in 2022.
The most exciting buy is Ngumoha, who left Chelsea furious at his exit in August. Ngumoha turned down a better monetary package at the Stamford Bridge club as he saw a better pathway on Merseyside. Again, that Carabao Cup win had a lasting legacy.
Mail Sport understands Liverpool’s southern-based scout Chris Wilkins was crucial in this deal, right from identifying him as one for the future and also convincing him to make the move. Ngumoha’s older brother James was heavily involved, as was long-term ally Fergal Hale-Brown.
‘I first saw Rio when he was around 12,’ adds the Secret Scout representative, who has been coaching youngsters for nearly two decades. ‘He was just a fantastic dribbler and unbelievable one-versus-one… so difficult to get the ball off him even if two players were trying.
‘He’s got a tight-knit family and in terms of attitude and mentality, there is zero opportunity for him to go astray or think he is bigger than what he is. They are buying very much with the idea he can become part of the first team and fulfil a certain position.
‘Sometimes when players transition into adult football, they cannot replicate what they did in youth teams – but his decision-making has got better and he has not dropped off. He knows he cannot just run through the whole team any more, knows when to pass and when to dribble.’
Secret Scout points to three examples of South American stars. Later this year, Estevao Willian will join Chelsea from Palmeiras for £28million, while Kendry Paez will move from Independiente del Valle in Ecuador for £17.2m. These are confirmed deals.
He adds: ‘He’s one of the best I’ve seen in my coaching journey. Look at Estevao, Kendry Paez and Endrick (joined Real Madrid from Palmeiras)… if Rio was in Brazil, he would have made his first-team debut already and funnily enough, Chelsea might have bought him for £50m!’
Not bad considering Liverpool will pay a mere six-figure sum for Ngumoha, who wears just ‘Rio’ on the back of his shirt. Compensation between the clubs is yet to be agreed to cover development costs and a tribunal is likely needed to determine the final figure.
Chelsea legend John Terry wrote on his Instagram back in September: ‘This boy is and will be a top, top player.’ Fine praise and, it must be said, a comment that provokes a smirk – for all of the players Chelsea have signed over the past 12 months, their best young player might have slipped through the cracks.
Ngumoha trained with the Reds first team shortly after signing and had sessions with new coach Aaron Briggs, who is the ‘link man’ between the academy and first team. He was managed carefully in his opening months at Anfield before being handed his senior debut on Saturday.
Nyoni, the 17-year-old signed from Leicester last summer among fierce competition from other big clubs, has also caught the eye. The midfielder excelled on Liverpool’s pre-season tour and was top scorer in a tournament for England Under 18s in September.
Harvey Elliott, who has been there and done that in terms of breaking into the first team after a move from a fellow English club, told Mail Sport in Philadelphia in August: ‘Trey has got everything in him. He is fearless for such a young age. I am sure his time will come.’
Signing youngsters from other academies is not exclusive to Liverpool but this is a clear transfer strategy. Going back a few more years, the likes of Kaide Gordon (from Derby), James McConnell (Sunderland) and Bobby Clark (Newcastle) have all made the first team.
They bought Ayman from Wolves in August – the Midlands club only signed him from Bradford a year earlier – and the Egyptian can play in both defence and midfield. Owen also came from Wolves, while highly-rated defender Nallo was poached from West Ham.
It must also be said that this policy does not detract from their hyper-local scouting. In the first team now, Quansah was plucked from Warrington club Woolston Rovers aged five. Quansah’s family are Manchester United fans but believed in Liverpool’s pathway more.
Tyler Morton, who was blocked from leaving on loan to join idol Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen last summer, is another local lad who turned down Everton to join the Reds. Don’t forget Scousers Alexander-Arnold and Curtis Jones, or Irishman Caoimhin Kelleher who joined at 16.
Of course, for every Gerrard or Alexander-Arnold, there are hundreds of kids who never pull on a red shirt at Anfield. But Liverpool believe they have a better pathway than any Big Six Premier League club to allow these starlets to become real stars.
Kids are kept grounded at the Kirkby training base by being asked to hand in their phones at the start of the day, a salary cap of £50,000 a year and a rule prohibiting them driving any car with an engine size above 1.3 litres. It prevents them from thinking they have ‘made it’.
Soon enough the conditions are in place for these kids to do just that and make it at the top level. Federico Chiesa was the only first-team signing last summer in a frustrating window but, look beyond that, Liverpool are plotting their way to future triumphs with this long-term vision.
