Young Guns Are Having Some Fun (Young Gunners, Less So)
Liverpool's youngsters keep getting better and better
Given the purely optimistic nature of the ZenDen, I've focused a lot on the Reds' young stars in the last 18 months or so on here.
I've felt something special brewing, with a change in youth recruitment ideas and development policies, allied to the senior squad now training on the same complex.
Before the season, for example, I said:
"Jarell Quansah is looking physically ready, but having turned 20 this year, will obviously be raw and make mistakes. I think he's the best purely homegrown centre-back in eons; maybe since Jamie Carragher. He's another positive. It's always hardest to tell with centre-backs, as it’s the latest outfield position to thrive in, but there's something about him."
From the article:
Academy Kids
Though it sounds like a line from The Decemberist’s 16 Military Wives, Eight Academy kids featured against Toulouse, in a 5-1 win, and these did not include Conor Bradley (stress fracture of back), Bobby Clark (also injured), nor Owen Beck, who was wowing Scotland on loan with Dundee, and is now back in the fold as a left-back option.
It did not include Kaide Gordon, a potential superstar at 16 who has subsequently missed almost two years of football but played for the first team again recently. Trey Nyoni, only 16, is making the bench at times.
It didn't include Tyler Morton (21), starring in the Championship on loan yet again, and who has a big future in the game; he played in all four competitions for the Reds two seasons ago, aged 19.
(Nor does it include Rhys Williams, who has struggled on various loans but in the past played 19 games for the senior side; nor Nat Phillips, who came to the Academy after being released from Bolton, and has 29 games for the senior side. Neither is likely to have a future at Liverpool but both were heroic aerial defenders in 2020/21 in the famous run-in.)
While they didn't play for the Reds' Academy sides, it didn't include Fábio Carvalho and Calvin Ramsay, out on loan (Carvalho is now back, but can't play for Liverpool this season if he's due to go out on loan again, which may be at Hull).
And even Ryan Gravenberch only turned 21 in the summer, and is a year younger than both Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli.
And it did not include last season's breakout star, Stefan Bajcetic, who, like Curtis Jones, Bradley, Gordon and others, has a stress-response injury, which can include fractures, splints and oedemas. (Doak, who turned 18 in the autumn, is also out for the season, with a knee injury but thankfully not an ACL.)
Prior to that, any time Liverpool had a standout centre-forward, he suffered an ACL at 18.
Bajcetic managed just two games this season, but still only turned 19 this winter.
This is a reminder of how relatively fragile teenage bodies are in the increasingly physical Premier League (and the non-stop arrival of other games), even before allowing for how pace, strength and stamina don't start peaking until +22.
So it's a reminder of how patient we need to be; see the timing of Jones' rise from mercurial squad player at 20/21 to genuine first-XI star at 22/23.
As I said in the summer, they can't all end up as Liverpool stars and starters, as there's not room in the team.
But it's worth looking at just how well they're doing.
*Note: the ZenDen is additional content separate from the TTT Main Hub. Rather than seek to write freelance work for other outlets, to supplement my income and keep TTT running (as everything gets more expensive), I write paywalled, zen-like material on the ZenDen. The ZenDen is a quiet space with no commenting – just articles to read. The community remains on the Main Hub, and its where I interact with subscribers, write different articles, and provide post-match analysis.*
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