Thursday 19 November 2015 11:26, UK
Liverpool have cut the number of their academy footballers by 15 per cent in a bid to drive up standards.
In the last year the club has cut the total number of players at the academy from 240 to fewer than 200 and director Alex Inglethorpe says that the Reds are aiming for quality rather than quantity.
He told the Liverpool Echo: "The definition of academy is that it should be a place of elite.
"It should be the case that when you look a player or their parents in the eye, you think there's a genuine chance of them ending up playing for Liverpool.
"Often it does the parents and the players a disservice if you are taking boys just to fill up numbers. That doesn't seem right to me. Often those boys will go to other clubs, be happy and stand a far better opportunity themselves by playing regularly.
"The changes started last season. We had around 235-240 before, it's just under 200 boys now and that figure will head south still."
In the first Merseyside derby of the season, Liverpool did not have a single locally-born player in the line-up for the first time since the 1986 FA Cup final.
Jordan Rossiter, Connor Randall and Jon Flanagan are recent graduates of the academy, and Inglethorpe says they need to focus on the most talented if they are to supply the first-team on a regular basis.
"The focus here now isn't on having a specific number in each age group, it's around wanting a specific level of quality in each age group," he said.
"There is no perfect number to have in an age group. If there are 25 boys, all unbelievable talents, all gifted, all got a real chance then, great, we'll have 25.
"But there's no point having 25 boys in an age group if you think only 10 have the long-term potential to stay on and become scholars or U21s players. It's not fair to the remainder of the group.
"In an academy there is a huge pull on coaching, resources and the level of attention you can give each family. We have looked at the level of quality and tried to be as fair to everyone as we possibly can."
