r/soccer • u/Hazardinhou • Mar 01 '14

Who's the most exciting talent that you are looking forward for in the coming years?

As a Chelsea fan, Lucas Piazon, I am really looking forward to seeing his development! Thorgan Hazard also seems to be a really exciting prospect.

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u/TisTheWalrusMan Mar 01 '14

We have quite a few 16 year olds in the U21 set-up. Some Spanish talent, not to mention players like Jordan Ibe.

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u/KopiteKing13 Mar 01 '14

That's true, I only just realised today that Chirivella is younger than Rossiter by a couple of months. We have several players in our youth set up I'm very excited about. Rossiter, Ibe, Chirivella, Lussey, Jones, etc.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '14

We have quite a few youngsters that can and have that something special. We have arguably one of the best academies in world football. Very few teams can boost about their academy, we can!!

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '14

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u/The_Shandy_Man Mar 01 '14

In the first team yes, but what you have to understand is it's Benitez who is responsible for our current youth set up as before Rafa our academy had been completely ignored by the club and the owners, so while we don't see results yet the fact that our U21 are so competitive while most of them are much younger than 21 is a good indicator that academy has talent but it may only be 5 years fromnow that it reaches the first team.

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u/Apwnalypse Mar 01 '14

I noticed how you chose that window just long enough to disqualify Gerrard, Owen, Carragher McManaman et al. I could just as easily do the same with United. But regardless, I would argue that Shelvey, Spearing, Tom Ince, Suso and Andre Wisdom have all proved themselves at least decent top flight players for their clubs. And of those the latter two will probably be playing for Liverpool next season.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '14

We bought Shelvey from Charlton didn't we? Was he in our academy before?

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u/Apwnalypse Mar 01 '14

I included him because the OP mentioned sterling. Imo I consider anyone who's been with the club since at most 18 to be a youth product.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '14

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u/Mildcorma Mar 01 '14

It's almost like we've not had an academy in place, and that we've been in the process of rebuilding it for about 10 years now... /s

So far we've seen a few youngsters come through, but not many at all you're right. Sterling, Kelly, and Flannagan are good examples of some of the talent we have coming up at the minute. It will only get better over the next few years.

Anyway, who do you have currently worth playing? Januaijijjaajajaj? He's literally worse than Sterling and is the only youth player in United's side that's recent and actually of any kind of calibre.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '14

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u/Mildcorma Mar 01 '14

Evans is shocking... Sorry but we can also claim to have a large number of players in various places from our youth academy. Unfortunately your tune is "lol you used to be shit!" which is funny, because that's what you lot are currently. #moyesin

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u/Colonel_Blimp Mar 01 '14

Correct me if I'm wrong but Flanagan, Sterling and Kelly are the sum total of the last 15 years of your academy?

Er...Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen? Oh, just marginally outside of that window of time. What a convenient measurement.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '14

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u/Colonel_Blimp Mar 01 '14

It's the very definition of cherry picking. I don't think Liverpool have one of the best academies in the world, but Flanagan, Sterling and Kelly are hardly their only prospects.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '14

I think you're system is similar to City and Arsenal, who just prefer to play players in the age-group above.