Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp believes his youth prospects, including the likes of Ben Woodburn, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ovie Ejaria, have benefitted from staying at Anfield as opposed to sending them out on loan.
Although Klopp has not worked as closely with the impressive youth talent at Liverpool as he does with the first-team squad, he claims they have learned a great deal from training alongside the senior players and turning out for the club's U23 side.
The players were already there and I had nothing to do with the development of Ben, Trent or Ovie,� Klopp said via theLiverpool Echo.
Jürgen Klopp's pre-match message. #LFCWHU #LFC pic.twitter.com/jP0ZE3wqxr
I don't think 40 or 50 minutes of football or whatever are enough to get the credit for what the players have done.
Ovie is maybe a bit different because we saw him and liked him and decided to push him a little bit more. But there was no chance to oversee Trent and Ben for example.
If they are very young then clubs in the past have sent them on loan and I don't think it is the perfect situation.It's much better that we can work with them together on football at the highest level.
When Klopp took over - was shocked to discover #LFC had 17 players out on loan. He'd been used to retaining/nurturing talent. (James Pearce)
Klopp was reportedly surprised to find Liverpool had 17 players out on loan when he succeeded Brendan Rodgers in October 2015. The club now only has 10 out on loan, with two being due to work permit issues.
We want to create an under-23 team that is really strong. The centre-backs (Mamadou Sakho and Tiago Ilori) are experienced which is unusual, but all the rest are very young, really skilled, they enjoy playing together and they are getting better results.
If you are the best player in your team at 15 everyone takes you to the under-17s and the next day you feel like the small guy in a forest with only big trees.
That is one way of education and you need to use situations like this, but being in a very good team and scoring 25 to 30 goals a season should still be possible so that's why we changed it a little bit. There is not one solution for all of our situations.�