#4 Liverpool haven’t produced a great player in ages
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If Klopp can’t buy the very best then perhaps it’d be okay if Liverpool were producing great players instead. The fact is though that they’re simply not. Aside from Raheem Sterling, who obviously jumped ship to Man City, who was the last top player that Liverpool produced?
Jon Flanagan and Andre Wisdom so far haven’t lived up to their potential, so you’re probably going back to the 1990’s and Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard.
That’s a pretty scary thought when you consider the amount of the Premier League’s top players who are actually homegrown these days. Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford and Ross Barkley, for instance, are all academy graduates who now play key roles for their club’s first team.
And others like Harry Winks and Tom Davies have broken through this season too.
Liverpool’s academy was recently re-vamped in 2015, with a focus now on quality over quantity and streamlining, but the fruits of that may not pay off until a few more seasons down the line. For now it may be a case of Klopp watching with envy as his rival clubs bring better youngsters through their system and into their first team.
If Klopp wants to win the league with Liverpool he needs to hope the academy can produce something as special as an Owen or a Gerrard.
