Return of the King - Dalglish is back!!

[moondance]

King Kenny's coming home:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2009/04/18/rafa-benitez-wants-kenny-dalglish-back-at-liverpool-fc-100252-23414183/

[royalstilton]

i would trust the Echo with 8 of my cat's lives. :eek:

[liverbird]

And could he play!

[el-capitano]

It is now up to Hicks and Gillett to approve the proposed move and should this happen it would require only the agreement of personal terms for Dalglish to complete a sensational return to Anfield.

Make it happen douches! ;)

[AussieLFCfan]

Nice!

[CCSC_STRIKER20]

This is a great move.

[moondance]

Dalglish set for Anfield role as Rafa shakes up his coaching staff:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1189024/Dalglish-set-Anfield-role-Rafa-shakes-coaching-staff.html?ITO=1490

Confirmed by Gedo (very reliable) at RAWK:

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=242947.0

[newterp]

I do believe there were some rumors about this - and it looks like its come to pass

[CCSC_STRIKER20]

Wow!

I have mixed feelings about this.

On one side, I think it's great that Rafa is taking a very pro-active approach towards our academy. Here's hoping that he can change our academy so it becomes mentioned in the same breath as Barcelona, Ajax, etc.

On the other side, there are a lot drastic changes going on. Ablett, McAuley, and two other youth team coaches are getting sacked at the end of their seasons. They haven't performed that badly, do they deserve to get sacked? I don't know, it kind of sucks.

How will all of these changes affect the youth team and reserve team players. Surely some of them will be thrown for a loop when they lose all of their coaches.

Finally, I wonder how many youth will leave our club this summer, because if Rafa is planning a major shake-up of the coaching staff methinks he will be making some changes in players as well.

[Bobinhood]

Well McParland coming back is very good rafa never wanted to lose him in the first place.

More importantly perhaps, it seems that scoring Segura is a real coup. By all reports he was the driving force behind the unparralleled Barca youth/academy system, then worked his way up to Olympiakos head coach, where he did very well also. Convincing a top guy to pack in a head coaching job to manage your academy.....nice.

I think as far as Rafa is concerned the academy and melwood are producing plesiss's and el zahrs, but we want owens and gerrards and he wont be happy till he gets em. Fine by me.

[el-capitano]

The Reds boss has moved swiftly to recruit fellow countryman Jose “Pep” Segura as the new technical manager at the Academy which is based in Kirkby.

Benitez has long held concerns at the standard of player being produced at the Academy and having recently been given decision making powers over Liverpool’s youth system he has already instigated a number of changes which he believes will deliver the necessary improvements.

48-year-old Segura was formerly technical director at Barcelona’s academy and played an integral role in the development of a whole host of top stars including Andres Iniesta, Victor Valdes, Bojan Krkic, Cesc Fabregas, Gerard Pique and Everton’s Mikel Arteta.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2009/05/18/rafa-benitez-delighted-as-jose-segura-heads-liverpool-fc-academy-100252-23649159/

[newterp]

there's a great discussion over on RAWK with some really salient points about how poor the academy has been in the last 10+ years - barely producing any TOP level talent.

While Rafa has tried to plug holes with some foreign purchases - I think he wants to blend in the home grown with the foreign starlets to start building from within - OR - to be able to sell some OK talent for a good profit.

[Red Bird]

there's a great discussion over on RAWK with some really salient points about how poor the academy has been in the last 10+ years - barely producing any TOP level talent.

While Rafa has tried to plug holes with some foreign purchases - I think he wants to blend in the home grown with the foreign starlets to start building from within - OR - to be able to sell some OK talent for a good profit.

I agree with this. We do need some home-grown talent-- we cannot always be buying big every season-- and I refuse to believe that we cannot produce any of our own. The coaching has to take some flak for this and, for me, the U-18's on Tuesday and the week before, severely disappointed.

[newterp]

just thinking about it - Insua will probably be next year, or the year after, the first first-team regular that the academy had "produced" since ___________ (owen, gerrard, carragher?).

some will say Danny Guthrie - but objectively speaking he probably wasn't going to be a Liverpool 1st team regular.

other examples? Warnock? Decent EPL player - not a title winners caliber.

[AndSomeAreAngels]

Wow!

I have mixed feelings about this.

On one side, I think it's great that Rafa is taking a very pro-active approach towards our academy. Here's hoping that he can change our academy so it becomes mentioned in the same breath as Barcelona, Ajax, etc.

On the other side, there are a lot drastic changes going on. Ablett, McAuley, and two other youth team coaches are getting sacked at the end of their seasons. They haven't performed that badly, do they deserve to get sacked? I don't know, it kind of sucks.

Omelettes, broken eggs, that sorta thing.

[Twenty26Six]

I think we should realize that - for the most part - the Academy exists to make a profit and NOT put many players in the first team.

[liverbird]

I think we should realize that - for the most part - the Academy exists to make a profit and NOT put many players in the first team.

Even then a well run one -- like at Citeh -- from much the same type of cachement area has produced Ireland, Richards, Sturridge and others for Citeh. Now we might end up selling them rather than putting them into our first team but ... that's better than our current output and would return more bank for us.

[MetroChile]

Technically, Insua was produced by vo-k though I can understand why someone could argue that he is "our" product, as well.

[Grinners89]

just thinking about it - Insua will probably be next year, or the year after, the first first-team regular that the academy had "produced" since ___________ (owen, gerrard, carragher?).

some will say Danny Guthrie - but objectively speaking he probably wasn't going to be a Liverpool 1st team regular.

other examples? Warnock? Decent EPL player - not a title winners caliber.

Insua is defintely not a product of our youth academy IMO. So far, the only player that I could see making an impact in the squad would be Adam Hammill, however it will most likely be from the subs bench for the majority of the season. He does have talent, we'll just see whether he's sold like Paul Anderson was, or whether he is trusted with being back-up to Riera, Gerrard and Yossi.

[newterp]

definitely why I used " " when talking about insua - at best he spent a couple of seasons in the reserves - but the academy is also supposed to help send better players to the reserves which is why I lumped those together.