Youthful Signings Pay Off For Reds - And Not Just Today!

 After seeing the Liverpool squad for today's game against Norwich I thought the majority of the players either came through our youth system or were brought in as young, up and coming professionals rather than established top level players. A bit of Wikipedia research seems to back up my hunch. Below is today's match squad along with the age each player was when he joined the club.

Brad Jones - 28
Andre Wisdom - 15
Daniel Agger - 22
Jamie Carragher - 12
Glen Johnson - 25
Steven Gerrard - 7
Lucas - 20
Jordan Henderson - 20
Luis Suarez - 23
Daniel Sturridge - 23
Stuart Downing - 26

Subs

Peter Gulacsi - 17
Joe Allen - 22
Fabio Borini - 21
Raheem Sterling - 16
Jonjo Shelvey - 18
Jack Robinson - 9
Martin Skrtel - 24

 Aside from Brad Jones, Glen Johnson and Stuart Downing all of the players bought in arrived in their early twenties or in their teens. My previous post went into detail about the cost of signing established big name players in the latter half of their careers compared to buying younger talent with potential and a sell on value so I'm not going to go into that again. 

 There have been some major world stars plying their trade at Anfield over the last five or ten years, the likes of Fernando Torres, Javier Mascherano and Xabi Alonso are top players, known throughout world football as genuine top drawer talents. What we sometimes forget is that, although these players were highly rated before they joined us, they only became real superstars at the top of their game while they were at Liverpool.  Looking at our current squad of youngsters I'd say we're going the right way about developing more big name players the same way those in recent years, as well as Luis Suarez right now, emerged onto the biggest stage with Liverpool.

 There can be no better argument to put to young talent choosing which club to join than what has happened at Liverpool over the last decade. We've put our faith in young players from Britain, Europe and South America and, despite the lack of titles, remained one of the best supported clubs in the world, making these players instant heroes to millions. Who wouldn't want a piece of that?

 And I don't expect us to be signing Wesley Sneijder.