Owners FSG have ticked so many boxes and have the club structured to succeed
The huge money behind clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City ensures they are doing everything they can to get young players signed up at a ridiculously young age.
And when I say they will do anything to get a young player, I mean anything.
You hear rumours of some clubs making lavish offers to kids and their parents to make sure they get them on board, but when they get to a club that has more players than they will ever need, their hopes of getting into the first team are remote.
Chelsea’s first team has too many players for manager Enzo Maresca to pick from, so what hope does a young kid in their academy have unless he is an absolute genius?
It’s not easy to break into the first team at Liverpool in a summer when they have spent more than ever before on new signings, but you don’t have to go back too far to remember when the kids were winning the club a trophy.
Last year’s League Cup final win over Chelsea was a triumph for the academy set-up, with Jurgen Klopp’s side finishing the match with five players aged 21 or under on the pitch in Jayden Danns, Bobby Clark, James McConnell, Harvey Elliott and Jarell Quansah.
The photo with those lads and academy graduate Trent Alexander-Arnold at the end of the match was a special moment, and while there is never any guarantee those kids will go on to become great Liverpool players, they did have a Wembley moment that will live with them forever.
When you are a local lad and come through the club’s ranks, that winning moment means so much more, and we saw that with Steven Gerrard after he came through the academy set-up at the club.
Elliott is a great example of a player who has shown his class in the Liverpool first team on the international stage in recent weeks as England’s star performer as Lee Carsley’s side retained their Euro Under-21 crown.
Harvey didn’t come through the academy as he was signed from Fulham, but his dad is a passionate Liverpool fan and you can see how much it has meant to him to play for the club.
There are some good players coming through at Liverpool now, with Conor Bradley the latest academy product likely to be given plenty of first-team action this season following Alexander-Arnold’s move to Real Madrid.
The challenge for players coming through an academy set-up is making that step up to the next level and Bradley did that superbly last year, just as Trent did when he first came into the Liverpool team.
I’ve been promoting the qualities of young Ben Doak on the pages of the Sunday World in recent years – and he is another one to watch as he is so quick over five yards.
I’m also hearing great things about teenager Rio Ngumoha, who was signed from Chelsea and had loads of quality, but senior football is a very different beast and only the best make it when their chance comes in the Premier League.
One factor the Liverpool academy have going for them is that they have the most incredible facilities to work in, and the lads lucky enough to be part of the set-up have every chance to have a great career, whether at Liverpool or elsewhere.
The club’s owners in the Fenway Sports Group (FSG) deserve so much credit for giving the academy the funding and attention it requires, and they have not stopped there.
So many top clubs have splashed out on new stadiums in recent years, but Liverpool decided to rebuild Anfield.
Some Liverpool supporters have their ashes buried under that stadium and the soul of the club will always be there.
As we have seen with clubs like Arsenal and Man City, so much of that history is lost when a clubs moves to a glossy new stadium.
Add to that the investment in the magnificent new training centre that was opened back in 2020 and they have managed to do all of that while running the club sensibly without having the crazy finances of most of their rivals.
Investment in the transfer market has been diluted while the stadium development and training ground were being built, but now we are seeing another side to FSG’s ambition as they have spent big in the transfer market this summer.
I wasn’t sure if they would give Arne Slot the kind of backing he needed to reshape his squad this summer, but paying more than £100m for the first time to sign Florian Wirtz was a massive statement, and they have spent the same again to sign some top-quality players that should push Liverpool forward next season.
Fans are always quick to turn on owners when things go wrong and they can’t just be judged on results with the first team, but FSG have ticked so many boxes in their time at Liverpool. We’re lucky to have them.
It’s easy to say you want your club to acquire a sugar daddy owner to come in and buy their way to success, but there is something so much more rewarding in seeing the way Liverpool have achieved success.
The owners have been fortunate to have had a sensational manager in Jurgen Klopp, who fired them to glory on a very limited budget, and Slot did a great job too with the tools he was left with to achieve success at Anfield.
Now Liverpool are kicking on by entering the big-spending league at last in the transfer market, and I can’t wait to see how they look when the new season gets underway in a little over a month.
It’s hard to know how to react when you wake up to the awful news we all woke up to on Thursday morning that Diogo Jota and his brother Andre had been tragically killed in a car crash in Spain.
His death will have a much bigger impact on his family and friends than any of us and it’s heartbreaking when a young man’s life ends in this manner.
Jota had three kids and got married to his childhood sweetheart only last month, but in the blink of an eye his wife and children have been robbed of the most important person in their world.
We often moan about little things that really don’t matter that much.
So, when you are hit by a story like this, it reminds you that you have to live for the moment and make the most of life. It can be very fleeting.
Jota will always be fondly remembered by Liverpool fans and the song they sing about him will be sung forever more now.
All I can do at this terribly sad time is to send my condolences to his family and friends.
RIP Diogo and Andre.