Liverpool have a massive 62 professionals on their
books and Uefa are far from happy about it.
"Ideally, you would want 23 or 24 and then have academy
players of a sufficient quality to back them up. If you have more
than 25, it is difficult to have a meaningful training
session." Mark Hughes, Manchester City
manager"
Johan Cruyff
"It has become all about resources. Clubs can now buy so many
players that 10 or 20 guys who could be top players elsewhere
cannot play.
Those comments were made within the past fortnight on a
topic that will be much debated over the coming weeks – squad sizes
in professional football. Among others who have had their say is
Uefa's general secretary, David Taylor, who calls the situation in
English football "ridiculous".
England's record cap-holder, Peter Shilton, is
"flabbergasted". Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional
Footballers' Association, accepts that the numbers at
Premier
League clubs are "very high". Craig
Lindfield, a Liverpool forward on loan at Accrington Stanley, finds
it "frustrating". His team-mate Jack Hobbs, loaned to Leicester,
finds his predicament "demoralising" and feels
"stale".
There is no Premier League rule to stop one club having more
than twice as many players as another, which is the case for
Liverpool, who have the most professionals on their books and
Bolton, who have the least. "Squad sizes are a matter for the
clubs," is the Premier League's official line. Lindfield and Hobbs,
both 20, are two of the 62 contracted players assembled by Rafael
Benítez at Anfield, while Gary Megson has to make do with 27 at the
Reebok Stadium. Even given the relentless, top-speed nature of
Premier League football, and the demands of chasing four or five
trophies, it seems a gargantuan number for any club to be able to
choose from, or want to employ. And, in times of recession, to pay
for.
Observer Sport's investigation into the Anfield 62, and
the implications for the wider game, was met with bemusement
everywhere – even from defensive Premier League representatives –
whenever the figure was mentioned.
"Ridiculous. Sixty-two? You can only field 11 at one time," said
Uefa's Taylor, whose employers insist on a 25-man squad limit for
the Champions League. "Work it out for yourself. Training would be
interesting with all these guys running about looking for 11
jerseys – you could have two full-size practise games." With plenty
of substitutes.
Taylor is right. Even without the 17 players who have been on
loan this season (see panel below) Benítez is left with 45, nearly
twice as many as Hughes's ideal number of 24, a figure José
Mourinho also insisted on when he began his successful tenure at
Chelsea in 2004, while Luiz Felipe Scolari named between 23 and 25
as his ideal squad size when he took over at Stamford Bridge.
Should the Premier League clubs have a limit? "That's what we do
in our competitions," said Taylor. "But that's for organisers of
domestic leagues to decide among the clubs. We think it has
benefits, it allows the introduction of other rules – like
home-grown players. It's not just squad size itself, but the
beneficial effect it can have, particularly on young and local
talent. So the two measures go together.
"Uefa has been in the vanguard of this and we certainly feel
it's very useful."
Taylor was unsure what benefit Liverpool might gain from having
so many professionals. "You'd have to ask them," he said. The club,
when asked precisely this question, declined to comment. "It's an
open question as to how many you actually need," said Taylor. "Is
it 20, 25?"
Certainly not 62, then. It is not only Liverpool who have dozens
on the payroll. Unsurprisingly, the other members of the Premier
League's Big Four, who tend to hoover up all the major trophies,
have the largest squads. According to their own official
websites Arsenal can call on 59 players, Manchester United 51,
Chelsea 46.
Liverpool, though, lead the way. According to most recent
figures from Deloittes, the accountants who specialise in
football, Liverpool paid out more than £77.5m in players' wages for
the season ending in 2007.
A professional at a Premier League club, even one who is a long
way from the reserve team, would earn a minimum of £1,000 a week,
and most earn considerably more. If 30 players were trimmed from
Liverpool's squad to leave 32 – still eight more than Hughes' and
Mourinho's ideal number – the saving in wages would be several
million pounds. Instead, Benítez has opted for quantity in his
recruitment policy – remember the club are struggling to refinance
their £350m debt by a summer deadline – and has to farm out
countless players on loan.
For some, the dream of performing in front of a packed Anfield
has translated into a grimmer reality of almost zero contact with
Benítez and disillusionment about the future. "I haven't spoken to
Rafa in a while," confirmed Hobbs, who was 17 when he signed from
Lincoln and said he played 18 matches during a season in
Liverpool's reserves. Hobbs wanted to play competitive football and
is, he said, happy to be now closing in on 50 Football League
appearances following loans at Scunthorpe and Leicester.
Gordon Taylor, head of the players' union, said: "Remember,
there's only one first team and clubs are not always totally
committed to reserve football. That means a heck of a lot of good
players on the bench. We've just done a survey on the number of
players loaned out. While some are successes it doesn't always work
out that way."
Godwin Antwi: hopes his agent can find him a
fifth and permanent club. He is desperate to play
regularly.
Godwin Antwi is a 20-year-old Ghanaian defender who is
concerned that his career is at a crossroads. Alongside Hobbs and
Lindfield, he was a member of the Liverpool team that won the first
of successive FA Youth Cups in 2006, defeating Manchester City
3-2. He has just finished a loan spell at Hereford, his fourth club
since being signed by Benítez from Real Zaragoza in 2005. This
season he will play no more professional football. He is finished
with Liverpool. In the summer Antwi hopes his agent, who is based
in Spain, can find him a fifth and, this time, permanent club. He
is desperate to play regularly.
"There's no chance of me accepting a new deal as I won't play in
the first team at Liverpool. I don't know why. When I signed, Rafa
and [former chief scout] Paco Herrera told me, 'Do your best.' But
I can't remember the last time I spoke with Rafa, not properly
anyway."
Did he ever think the breakthrough might come? "When we won the
FA Youth Cup – that was the time. City's team had Micah Richards,
Michael Johnson, Ched Evans and Daniel Sturridge, all first-team
players now. But Liverpool signed Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel in
my position."
Meanwhile, Lindfield is playing for Accrington Stanley, having
started the season at Bournemouth after previous loans with Chester
and Notts County. "I've been at Liverpool since I was seven – it's
all I've known," he said. "Most young players who want to learn
their trade would do it better in the lower leagues than in the
reserves." This view was echoed by all the Liverpool loanees
Observer Sport spoke with.
"You learn a lot more playing with people's livelihoods on the
line. And it helps you mature as a person."
Lindfield, who has made 10 League starts since joining Stanley
in January, was also a member of the Liverpool FA Youth Cup side
and talks of it being considered a golden generation within the
club. "The so-called Dream Team – Steve Heighway called us that. He
was the academy head, but took a liking to our age group who were
pretty much together all the way through. The under-18 coach
usually does the Youth Cup, but Steve Heighway thought that highly
of us he took over."
Lindfield, like Hobbs and Anwti, mentioned the City players in
the 2006 final who had gone on to establish themselves. What of
that Liverpool team? "Jack Hobbs has made a few appearances, and
recently there's been Jay Spearing and Stephen Darby."
The three have made a grand total of nine appearances. "That's
the difference between Liverpool and other clubs, young lads get
more of a chance elsewhere," Lindfield added.
Is this because of the numbers at the club? "Yeah. It's a
massive squad. All the professionals at Melwood [the club's
training complex] – there's about 50 players in total," Lindfield
said, somewhat underestimating the number. "There's only about nine
or 10 English lads so that speaks for itself, doesn't it?"
Does that make it more difficult to get a chance? "With
Liverpool having a Spanish manager he's got a lot of knowledge of
Spanish football so he's brought in quite a lot of Spanish lads,"
said Lindfield. (There are nine on the books.) "Getting off to
Melwood from the academy is supposedly the hardest step but you're
in the reserve team of about 30 lads, and really you're as far away
as you have been. It's not like the old days when there were six or
seven reserves and the rest were filled by first-team players."
While Robbie Threlfall, another member of that victorious Youth
Cup team, has just returned from a trial with Swedish club
Djurgardens, Adam Hammill is at Barnsley having previously played
on loan with Blackpool, Southampton and Dunfermline where he
experienced the Scottish FA Cup final two years ago.
"At 18 you'd be naive to think you're going to break into
Liverpool's first team. You'd have to be a Gerrard, Owen or Rooney.
It's also a hell of a lot of pressure to be playing for your
home-town team," said Hammill, a 21-year-old midfielder who has
made seven League appearances since arriving at Oakwell last
month.
"Darren Potter and Danny Guthrie were ahead of me [in age] and
did well on loan. They ended up playing a few games for the first
team. So if I do well I might get my chance. I'm a Liverpool player
and want my future there. If not, well, the only way is down but
you can try and work your way back up that ladder."
How do Liverpool monitor a player's development while he is on
loan? "They evaluate you at the end of the season and send scouts
to watch in certain games. But you don't get much feedback. The
only feedback is off the manager you're playing for, your agent and
your family."
Gordon Taylor and the PFA have done their own evaluation of
players' careers. "Six hundred players each year join Premier and
Football League clubs at age 16. Of those, 500 will be out of the
game by 21. It's a big wastage and not good enough. We have got to
look at improving the success rate of academies and centres of
excellence.
"Those who don't make it at the top don't necessarily make it
lower down. That can be a tougher set-up where skills and technique
don't always count as much as strength and competitiveness. We're
finding a big black hole between 19 and 21. That's a big worry to
us, it's why we have to think seriously."
Taylor stressed that he was not in the business of limiting
employment opportunities, but he was keen to see some adjustments.
"There's a great deal of money invested. That's why we're very much
in favour of a system whereby out of a squad of 25, for example,
you'd have at least eight to 10, irrespective of nationality, come
through a development programme at that club or in that
country."
Regarding Liverpool, he was refreshingly frank. "From the sides
that won the Youth Cup, I don't know if a player was given an
opportunity at first-team level. It's amazing we focus on Stevie
Gerrard and Jamie Carragher because they are just the last two
homegrown players now in that team."
For central defender Hobbs, as with all those on the periphery
hoping for a way in at Liverpool, this is a live issue. "I was
talking to an old school teacher the other day. Look at our Youth
Cup side – not one has broken into the first team. You get to a
decision where you think, 'Is it worth playing reserve games and
getting a little bit stale waiting for your chance? Or do you go
out and get the experience?'
"He [Benítez] brought in Skrtel, and there's Agger, Carragher
and Hyypia so I was down the bottom. I'm really grateful I went out
on loan now and am chasing 50 League games."
Hobbs has the most first-team appearances of that 2006 side –
all five came last season, including a lone Premier League start
against Reading – yet the breakthrough never came. "I was thinking
I could be involved a bit more. But then he [Benítez] went out and
bought Skrtel for a record signing for a centre-back. It's quite
demoralising when you're working to get your chance and they just
buy in multi-million pound players.
"But Liverpool are one of the top clubs in the world. You
wouldn't expect it to be easy. The way I look at it is if I play
every game as well as I can I'm going to end up where I deserve.
Ideally, I'd love to be playing for Liverpool every week, but the
truth is it's going to be very difficult."
Ricky Parry, Liverpool's outgoing chief executive, is thought to
have fallen out with Benítez over player recruitment. Apparently,
it was a major reason why Parry was forced out. So how Parry's
replacement deals with Benítez's penchant for stockpiling players
could be interesting to watch. Given the background of the club's
owners, the new man may be an American.
Uefa have followed the model of American sports. Major League
Soccer insists on a season-long roster of 24 players, while
American football and basketball have squad limits of 53 and 15
respectively. With Liverpool flying in the Premier and Champions
League, Benítez is all-powerful. But a trophyless season added to
the dire financial climate – and who knows if Tom Hicks and George
Gillett will still be in control – might at least prompt a
discussion about the Anfield 62. After all, Sunderland's
Texas-based owner Ellis Short was so upset on discovering he was
bankrolling 47 players that it caused the departure of Roy
Keane.
And any wide-ranging debate over squad size and finances might,
in the long term, be good for the health of football.
