Eccleston’s Liverpool saga highlights a bigger problem
Nathan Eccleston contract refusal raises a few issues
Last week when Nathan Eccleston reportedly turned down a contract with Liverpool it barely made the headlines and if you aren’t a Liverpool fan you would not be alone in not knowing who he is.
The 18 year old Manchester born striker reportedly turned down an extension to his current deal and although he is contracted to the club until 2012, his decision to reject the Anfield club’s offer has caused quite a stir amongst Liverpool fans.
The word is despite making a cameo against Arsenal in their recent Carling Cup defeat then his league debut against Fulham in the subsequent game, Eccleston is worried about his first team opportunities at Anfield.
The youngster has been making quite a name for himself in the reserves and his performances saw him called up to the squad at the Emirates and Craven Cottage. Along with Daniel Sanchez Ayala, Daniel Pacheco and David Amoo, Eccleston is held in high regard so when he rejected the contract it obviously raised a few eyebrows.
Despite Eccleston’s fear about first team opportunities the saga also embodied another problem. When was the last time Liverpool had cultivated a player from its academy?
You would have to look back to the likes of Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen to find a young player who had made his way up the ranks at the Merseyside club to forge a career in the first team. Jay Spearing is regularly named as a first team sub but doesn’t make it on field and appears stuck in the mire between the reserves and the first team.
Whereas Arsenal can boast of Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy, Kieran Gibbs amongst others who have come from their academy and reserves to cement first team places Liverpool have no one of recent memory and this is a worrying trend not only at Liverpool but all across England.
Of the three players mentioned above two are not English and it is indicative of the problem English football faces. For various reasons England is failing to produce talent the way other countries do and because they can’t find the players here, managers look abroad and thus the English game suffer as a result.
The introduction of the home grown rule next season should have helped put an end to this but with loopholes in its design, managers can continue to purchase from abroad as the term ‘home grown’ applies to ANY player who has been registered with an English or Welsh club for 3 years before their 21st birthday.
Eccleston faces the prospect of having to get past David N’Gog, whose stock is rising with every appearance, Andriy Voronin and Fernando Torres if he wants to become a first team regular at Liverpool and this is an unenviable task for any 18 year old.
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I think its more than that (24 starts and 5 off the bench according to the official Arsenal website) such are the problems of using Wikipedia as a source!
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We can’t speculate as to how Fabregas may have developed at Barca, what we can do is note how he has developed at Arsenal.
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If you look at the official arsenal site you can see the stats there.
http://www.arsenal.com/reserves-youth/players/kieran-gibbs
He has made 11 Prem app’s and 18 cup app’s
Insua has made 26 Prem App’s and 8 cup app’s
I agree re: Cesc who is to say how he would have faired at Barca given the midfield he had to break into.
IMO I still think the development done in the 3 years with Barca was more than the couple of month’s development done at arsenal before he started playing. They knew they got a special player and with arsenal’s lack of midfield options at the time he got his break early.
anyway regards liverpool academy i’m interested to see how thing develop over the next year of 2 since Rafa’s been handed controls and got rid of Heighway etc.
Plus if Eccleston is good enough he will make the breakthrough and if he is not he won’t.
If he is worried about first team he should go out on loan and get some proper experience. as you mentioned before he is behind a few strikers in the pecking order, Torres, Ngog, Voronin and Nemeth.
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As a Liverpool fan I am quite disturbed when this story broke last week. Lets not kid ourselves – Insua and Stephen Warnock hardly justify the production line when we consider the plethora of talent we used to produce. Rafa has taken control at the expense of Steve Heighway for a reason – I just hope our production line starts to churn out some talent now as we cannot afford to fall further behind – especially with G and T in charge.
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11 plus 18 equals 29. Or do you use some next form of further maths to do your calculations. This article represents part of the problem for homegrown English talent. Certain clubs are unwilling to take the risk in playing these youngsters in first team games. If you ask many Liverpool fans some will say that Macheda’s goal against Villa gave United the title. who knows what would have happened hadn’t Fergie gambled. We also saw a United team filled mostly of youngsters outplay Everton and do everything but win the game in the FA Cup semis.
All in all my point is why have young promising talent if your only purpose for them is to rot in the reserve leagues.
English football needs to take a leaf out of the books of their European neighbors.
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Oooh ooh oooh me me me me!
Yes? Ok. Fabregas and Clichy arent from Arsenals Academy. They were bought from elsewhere as very talented youngsters. If you’re including them as from the Arsenal Academy you might as well be including Lucas and Insua as Liverpool Academy products.
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How can Gael Clichy be counted as a player who has come through Arsenal’s academy into the senior team, yet Insua isn’t? Both came to their respective clubs from abroad at the age of 18. So, either the writer is ignoring the facts in order to create more substance to his story, or simply he failed to research the facts. Which is it?
Comparing Arsenal’s youth situation with Liverpool’s is madness. Wenger has been there for 13 years – Benitez has been at Liverpool for 5! How can you compare their youth setups? Wenger has built it up over the time he has been there and has been there long enough to see the benefits. Benitez has ripped out the failing setup and now, and in the next couple of seasons, is when he should be seeing results. Insua has come through. Anyone who saw Kelly play against Lyon will have been very impressed. And we have other big talents like Eccleston, Pacheco and Nemeth. Bringing youth through is a long-term process, and you can’t rebuild the youth setup and see the benefits in the matter of a few years.
Not to mention that Wenger is considered untouchable with regard to his ability to bring youth through. No manager has the same success as him and its no disgrace to not compare favourably.
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He doesn’t have o worry about A.VORONIN, he is crap, his problem will be when LFC sign up the Cypriot striker Klapa Arhitha, he is very good on the ball..
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I have seen Klapa Arhitha play looks to be a awesome player of the future and with LFC having first crack at him, he will be lethal with Torres.
GO KLAPA ARHITHA
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He is quality player LFC on a winner
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