[lfc-news] Academy: Development of players is priority - Post

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Liverpool Daily Post, 22 Oct 2004
Development of players is priority
Academy football with Chris Wright, Daily Post

IT IS a familiar position Liverpool under-18s find themselves in this week.

They need to bounce back after a defeat when they take on Manchester City
at the Kirkby Academy tomorrow (kick-off 11am).

And with a reserve match last night at Manchester United, which featured
several of John Owens's squad, it is likely those players involved will be
used sparingly tomorrow.

It has been a tough start with six defeats and just three victories in
their opening nine fixtures. But as long as the individual members of the
team are developing - and the amount of reserve-team action they are
getting would suggest they are - the Liverpool coaches are happy.

Owens said: "We felt that this would be a tough season. We knew that at the
start and it not particularly a surprise.

"The result is paramount for the first team, whereas not so for us. But
when players play in a game they want to win."

With just one team at Academy level now, Liverpool's squad is smaller than
in the past and several of them are playing twice a week, if they are
selected for Hugh McAuley's second string. And Owens has to gear his side
around each individual's development.

Owens added: "The reserves are usually thought of as being for players who
are not in the first team squad, but it is not working out that way. It is
good that it gives a chance for my U18 team to step up. If they play on a
Thursday like this week, you have to take a player out of the U18s like
Danny O'Donnell recently.

"You have to look at what is best for the individual player. If you were to
ask, 'what is best for the U18 team', it would be for these players to play
all the time. But that's not what it's about. It's about those lads pushing
on and doing their best in the reserve game."


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