You have only seen Lucas and Babel because they are the only ones who have proven so far from their time at Liverpool that they can consistantly play in a top 4 premier league team. From your £28million figure they cost £6 million and £10.5 at a total of £16.5 million so your article is slightly misleading and i am curious to where your other £11.5 million has gone. Guthrie would be the sixth central midfielder at Liverpool behind Gerrard, Alonso, Mascherano, Lucas and Sissoko so he would almost never get a game in the side hindering his development, which is why he has gone on loan to another side. Hobbs cost £750,000 and while he has been impressive in the reserves he has had better players in front of him, but now with the injuries and Agger being out for so long maybe he will get his chance....but we are trying to win the Premier League this season so our best players should play when fit and really giving these youngsters a chance in a season like this is second thinking. El Zhar has been impressive

El Zhar has been impressive in recent games for the reserves but again he has better players in front of him in the first team so they will play in the majority of games. In the Carling Cup is the most likely place we will see him play. Nemeth is 17 and is nowhere near ready for the first team, although he has loads of poitential for the future his time is not now. Same goes for Andras Simon. The best thing for these young players is to play competitive football at other clubs because they are not going to get many games here while we are on the chase for trophies and have such a deep squad, while the core of your arguement may be correct that young players should be given a chance you need to remember Liverpool is not a mid table side where young players get a chance so often.

Ok lets take Nemeth,he made his debut in November not Dec and had to wait because he has suffered 2 career ending injuries since signing.I think (but don't hold me to it) he broke his leg during his first training session.As for Guthrie whilst he is a good young player he wasn't/isn't good enough for our first team,he's too small and not on the same level as Lucas who is/would've been his competition.RAFA IS GIVING HIS YOUNGSTERS A FAIR CRACK OF THE WHIP,if they are good enough they will get in the team end of story

This site posts anti Liverpool articles all the time? Where do you get £28m from? Lucas and Babel is £19m but I wouldn't include them in the context of young players that the article is meaning as they were bought to compete for a 1st team spot straight away, so where has the rest been spent? I know about 20 players have been brought in but most are 17/18 who need time to develop. Give Rafa a chance.

Unbelievably for a sportingo article you are actually making some sense here. I agree with you that it would be nice to see some of the players like el zhar, jordi brouwer, et al, more often. However, to bring any of these players on in a premiership match means they have to (obviously) start on the bench. The premiership is such an awkward competition that Rafa cannot take the risk that we would be beating a team, so has to leave experienced attacking options on the bench. Occasionally he might have to introduce a new young player - like hobbs yesterday, due to injuries, and I am happy with that for now. The place to play the younger players is trips to forest/luton in the fa cup (but even then he must be careful after the farce a few years ago), and, obviously, the carling cup. At the end of the day the fact that we even know the names of some of the reserve team players shows that the squad behind the first team is improving. Last point - i thought jack hobbs was excellent yesterday to be fair when

What a stupid piece if you took the trouble to go to reserve under 18 or youth matches you will se Rafa is getting together 3 teams who all play the same and can play in all competitions unfortunatly i do not believe Guthrie is one of them the stars in the background are Dniel Pacoco, big Astrid ,Pourie the best of them all Emaliano Insua youngsrers like Bruna Ecclestone,Amoo as well as local kids and Irish kids Collins ,Threlfall These kids will come through but we are Liverpool fc and only the best will do soon we will have a golden generation of about seven kids coming through at the same time

The whole point on investing in youth is to get quality players in the future. The 2 you mention (Lucas and Babel) account for £17m and it's those values which show that they are far more advanced in their development (Babel is a full Dutch international FFS) than the rest of the youth bought in so it's unsurprising that they are the ones most likely to go straight into the first team. Players like Nemeth, Plessis, Pacheco et al.. barely have a handful of first team performances between them so to suggest they should be thrown into a premier league contest this early in their development is laughable. Guthrie has had first team experience but is at least 6th choice when you consider the central midfield talent at Rafa's disposal - the best way for him to gain more experience is to go on loan and the fact that he's managed to secure a place at another premier league club shows he's a good player - maybe when he comes back he'll be able to push the 5 international players ahead of him for a place in the 1st te

What an ass you are! Babbel, Lucas, Agger, Carson were all bought under the age of 21. The others are all 16/17/18. Out of the ones I mentioned above you have 4 stars who are all playing regularly... PLUS we will soon make a 9.25 mil profit on one of them... hardly bad business!! Plus your Guthrie argument is sad... he isn't good enough to play in our first 11 so why not let him gain valuable premiership experience? Your way of thinking baffles me ...

Since you know the 'exact' amount Rafa has spent on players under 21 years of age, I'll wait for you to publish the exact prices on the individual players before commenting. Over to you Hamzah.

is where the reserves will get a game. Not a chance they'll play regular league games.

Don't know where you got your figures, but they're not right. Here's a list of all the players bought by Benitez under the age of 21 still with the squad and the amount: Godwin Antwi unknown (probably free*) Miki Roque unknown (probably free*) Jack Hobbs £150,000 Besian Idrizaj £190,000 Paul Anderson player exchange (Jon Welsh) Daniel Agger £5,800,000 David Martin £250,000 Nabil El Zhar £200,000 Astrit Ajdarevic £750,000 Jordy Brouwer unknown (small compensation*) Franscico Duran £66,000 ( £264,000**) Ronald Huth unknown* Lucas £5,000,000 Sebastian Leto £1,800,000 Ryan Babel £11,500,000 Emiliano Insúa £1,300,000 (* I added £100,000 for each even though that's probably more than they actually cost on average.) Total: £27,670,000 Subtract those who get first team call-ups: Agger, Lucas, Leto, and Babel for a total of £24,100,000. The rest equal £3,570,000 and that includes a large chunk from Astrit, who is an Academy player and probably should

[quote]that's to abuse jaimie kanwar live on the phone[/quote] You idiot, this site is about people expressing their opinions and others commenting on those. For the most part people get dragged across coals but giving out someone's number? Don't be such a tosser, that's breaking all kinds of laws

shouldn't be included. No Academy player for any club plays on the first team, ever. Not even for League Cup matches. I got my figures from www.lfchistory.net, soccerbase, and www.anfieldbanter.blogspot.com.

There's a reason Rafa wants the Premiership to follow Spains lead and raise the amount of subs you can have from 5 to 7, its so he can afford to put a couple of kids on the bench. Leto, El Zhar and Insua have all had first-team experience this and last season, and of course, Babel, Lucas and Hobbs.

[quote][quote]that's to abuse jaimie kanwar live on the phone[/quote] You idiot, this site is about people expressing their opinions and others commenting on those. For the most part people get dragged across coals but giving out someone's number? Don't be such a tosser, that's breaking all kinds of laws[/quote]and the number came from the public domain you nob! but keep trying, maybe one day sportingo will take pity and give you a job on their team instead of you spending all your time on here as an unpaid, self appointed voice of the site. how's the wife?.....oh sh*t i forgot

I think Steve Gerrard is My Best Player Ever and I think i wil die with him..

Who the hell plays 16/17/18 year olds in the First Team straight away - unless they are the likes of michael owen or christiano ronaldo... Rafa has spent money on youngsters for the future - not now... One of the main reasons for this is the (proposed) UEFA rule requiring a certain number of club trained players in each squad in UEFA competitions... And clearly when buying such young players its far more hit or miss... these youngster have been bought for 2 to 3 seasons time... this is the problem with free speech - people whos i.q's are lower than that of a 1 celled ameoba are allowed to spout their brain dead opinions...

i think we ie liverpool hAVE GOT SOME FANTASTIC PLAYERS Babel and lucus look very good we need to keep the other players happy that is smion guthrie zhar HOBBS players like that because we will need them in the future gerrard is 27 cARRIGHER IS 29 ALONSO IS NERLY 27 I THINK YER IT NOT TO OLD BUT THE YOUNGSTERS WILL GET A CHANCE BUT I DONT NO HOW LONG THAT WILL TAKE ANYWAY LIVERPOOL LOOKING GREAT AT THE MOMENT GOALS GOALS AND GOOD DEFENDING WEN AGGER AND ALONSO GET BACK WE WELL BE EVEN STRONGER DNT FORGET PENNNANT GREAT PLAYER AND FABIO ARIULLO HOPEFULLY THEY WILL RECOVER QUICK

I READ AN ARTICLE ON HEAR ABOUT 4 WEEKS AGO I FORT IT WAS REALLY BAD ABOUT STEVEN GERRARD THE MAN SAID HE DID NOT SHOUT OR LIFT THE PLAYERS ON THE PITCH IN THE ENGLAND GAME WELL I TOTOLALLY DISAGREE YOU TYPE IN STEVEN GERRARD ON GOOGLE YER AND YOUR SEE A PICTURE OF HIM COVERD FROM HEAD TO TOE IN MUD SHOUTING HIS HEAD OF AT BARRY AND LAMPARD YES HE HAD A BAD GAME BUT THERE IS TEN MORE PLAYERS ON THE PITCH AND SAYING HE HAS NO PASSION OMG MATE NO PASSION WELL YOU DNT NO WHO STEVEN GERRARD IS THEN AND HE IS THE BEST ALL ROUND YES ALL ROUND MIDFLIEDER IN THE WORLD I NO THIS IS AB IT LATE BUT I FORT I WUD JUST TELL YOU WHO THE REAL STEVEN GERRARD IS

That comment above is not really me, however it is true that I am a d***head.

while it would be brilliant for all these youngsters to play for Liverpool 1sts now, would that not hinder our chances for winning the league this year? yes it would, cus even if they were all in the mould of Carragher or Gerrard of the same age, we would be a lot less closer to our first league win in 18 years ! I believe Rafa will certainly give the deserving players a fair chance, why take the effort to sign them and secure them on long contracts if they wont be and given the lack of money forthcoming to Benitez ! its been a long time since young talent came from Melwood but with winning the Youth Cup 2 years running, we seem to now have a bright future to be proud of.

insua is a player with potential! he definitely has a future at the club and has the potential to become a recognised left back across europe... the carling cup is his and all the other reserve team players chance to impress this season.. or maybe they could be introduced as substitutes in comfortable games where liverpool are winning by 3 or 4 goals