Was Brendan Rodgers Really the Developer of Young Talent He Proclaimed to Be?

“You say ‘steady’ to me again, when I say something to you, you’ll be on the first plane back”—some of Brendan Rodgers’ first words as Liverpool manager, aimed at Raheem Sterling during the Reds’ pre-season tour of North America and documented by Fox Sports’ Being: Liverpool served to highlight his intentions.

Arriving on Merseyside on the first day of June in 2012, Rodgers was lauded as one of Europe’s brightest young managers, having masterminded Swansea City’s successful start to life in the Premier League from 2010, and at the fulcrum of this excellence was the Ulsterman’s approach to youth development.

This is something that Rodgers reiterated during an interview with The Anfield Wrap just over three months after his appointment, succeeding Kenny Dalglish—a symbol of Liverpool’s former glory—in club owner Fenway Sports Group’s aim to drag the club into a bright future:

That’s the message that I want to get out, I’ve done all my short career as a manager, I’ve an inherent belief in young players, but not blindly, they have to have the talent and the personality.

And I think if you see the clubs that do give those young players an opportunity it’s normally the clubs where the manager has an inherent belief in them, or financially it’s forced upon them.

For me it probably works both ways really. I believe a young player will run through a barbed wire fence for you. An older player looks for a hole in the fence, he’ll try and get his way through it some way, but the young player will fight for you.

Rodgers continued to stress that his young players’ “attitude,” the very same aspect that he pulled up with Sterling in North America, was central to this, using 34-year-old vice-captain Jamie Carragher as his leading example.

But four years, a miserable Goodison Park dismissal and a majestic Celtic Park unveiling later, was Rodgers really the developer of young talent he proclaimed to be at Liverpool?

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The squad that Rodgers brought with him to Toronto for his first friendly clash as Liverpool manager provided the perfect opportunity showcase his faith in youth, with senior players Luis Suarez, Craig Bellamy, Sebastian Coates and Pepe Reina left out of the Reds’ touring squad.

Steven Gerrard, Martin Kelly, Glen Johnson, Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing were poised to meet up with Rodgers’ squad later in the tour, leaving him with the youthful group chastised in front of the Fox Sports cameras.

Included were goalkeepers Peter Gulacsi and Danny Ward, defenders Jon Flanagan, Danny Wilson, Jack Robinson, Ryan McLaughlin, Brad Smith, Andre Wisdom and Stephen Sama and midfielders Suso, Jay Spearing, Jonjo Shelvey, Krisztian Adorjan and Conor Coady.

Sterling joined a young group of attackers alongside Nathan Ecclestone, Jordon Ibe, Dani Pacheco and Adam Morgan, with the latter taking to Twitter to express his delight at being selected for the tour:

Really …

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