Fenway Sports Group’ CEO of football Michael Edwards was part of a Liverpool delegation who visited Paris Saint-Germain’s academy facilities before Christmas.
The trip to the state-of-the-art complex in Poissy, west of the French capital, which was inaugurated in 2024, also involved FSG technical director Julian Ward. It was about seeking inspiration as Liverpool put the finishing touches to their own ambitious plans to transform their youth training centre at Kirkby.
The Athletic revealed in September that the Premier League champions are set to embark on a £20million redevelopment of their academy. A dome will be built giving the club a full-size indoor pitch for the first time. The main grass pitch will be relocated with a new stand for around 500 supporters, while gym, medical, sports science, changing and coaching facilities will all be enhanced.
Following a period of public consultation, Liverpool have submitted their planning application to the local authority. The hope is that they will get the green light in the spring. Work would then commence this summer with it due to be completed in 2028.
The project is being led by Kieron Bacon, Liverpool’s vice president of club infrastructure and asset management. As chair of the steering group, Bacon has been responsible for organising visits to other academies in Europe to establish best practice.
As well as PSG, staff have spent time at Monaco, Red Bull Salzburg, Tottenham Hotspur, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace in recent months. Those clubs have all invested heavily in their youth sections.
Aside from Edwards, Ward and Bacon, FSG director of football development Pedro Marques, Liverpool academy director Alex Inglethorpe, head of academy operations Joel Waldron and head of facilities Andrew Rice have also been involved in the information-gathering missions.
The hope is that the biggest overhaul of Liverpool’s academy since it opened in 1998 will help to produce more youngsters capable of progressing into the senior ranks.
Since 2020, Liverpool have generated more than £200m from the sale of players who represented the club at youth level. Last summer alone they earned around £100m, including performance-related add-ons, following the departures of Trent Alexander-Arnold (Real Madrid), Caoimhin Kelleher (Brentford), Nat Phillips (West Bromwich Albion), Jarell Quansah (Bayer Leverkusen), Tyler Morton (Lyon) and Ben Doak (Bournemouth). With FSG’s self-sustaining business model, it all goes back into the club.
Qansah moved to Leverkusen in a deal worth £30m (Carlos Rodrigues/Getty Images)
However, there was a sense internally at the start of the season that they had reached the end of the cycle academy wise and that’s been reinforced in the six months since.
Curtis Jones and Conor Bradley, whose season is over after knee surgery, are the only Liverpool academy graduates to have played more than an hour of Premier League football so far this season. Teenagers Rio Ngumoha and Trey Nyoni are the only others to be given any top-flight action.
Amara Nallo, Wellity Lucky, Calvin Ramsay, Kaide Gordon, Jayden Danns, Trent Kone-Doherty and Kieran Morrison all featured in the Carabao Cup but after a chastening exit at the hands of Crystal Palace, Arne Slot took no chances and opted to field a much stronger line up against League One outfit Barnsley in the third round of the FA Cup on Monday.
Slot has been criticised for not putting enough faith in youth this season. During tough times it’s always harder for managers to blood rookies but the bigger issue is that there simply aren’t enough of them staking a serious claim for inclusion. Stefan Bajcetic and Danns maybe could have done but for spells on the sidelines due to injury.
Since Alexander-Arnold’s exit, Jones has been the poster boy for the academy. Having joined the youth ranks at Kirkby at the age of nine, Jones has gone on to make more than 200 senior appearances. You want youngsters to come up through the system, graduate to the first-team set-up and stay there.
Jones is challenged by two players in the game against Leeds (Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
But Liverpool are also committing greater resources into strengthening squads at academy level by bringing in some of the best young talent both domestically and internationally.
Winger Ngumoha, who arrived from Chelsea in 2024, and midfielder Nyoni, who was signed from Leicester City 12 months earlier, have proved to be shrewd acquisitions with their potential clear. There are also high hopes for teenage striker Will Wright, who cost £200,000 from Salford City last summer. Wright has recently regained fitness after a knee injury.
Matt Newberry, who was previously head of academy recruitment and director of loans and pathways, was promoted to the new role of head of global talent 14 months ago.
His work has now resulted in Liverpool’s committing around £3.5m this month on two highly-rated young centre-backs in Mor Talla Ndiaye and Ifeanyi Ndukwe. Both caught the eye of scouts at November’s Under-17 World Cup in Qatar.
Ndiaye completed a £1m move from Amitie FC, the Senegal club owned by former Chelsea striker Demba Ba, when he turned 18 last week. The Senegal youth international, who attended Monday’s FA Cup tie against Barnsley at Anfield, is starting off with Rob Page’s under-21s squad at Kirkby.
The fee for Ndukwe from Austria Vienna could rise to £2.5m if the various add-ons are triggered. The 6ft 5in defender was a key part of the Austria team which reached the final of the Under-17 World Cup where they lost to Portugal. He was a regular at reserve team level for Austria Vienna in 2024-25 and has been on the bench for their first team this season. As he doesn’t turn 18 until March, he’s not expected to arrive at Kirkby until pre-season in July.
Ndukwe in action for Austria U17s (Jurij Kodrun – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
Liverpool also signed a third centre-back in 19-year-old Noah Adekoya from Burnley. It’s little surprise to see that position reinforced to such a degree.
At first-team level, change in that department in the near future appears inevitable. Ibrahima Konate is out of contract this summer, while Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez only have another 18 months on their deals. Giovanni Leoni is currently recovering from a torn ACL.
In terms of Slot’s other options, Lucky has jumped above Nallo in the pecking order this season having made the bench for four Premier League games, but both were overlooked completely for this week’s FA Cup tie. Nallo is expected to be loaned out this month as he looks to put the misfortune of becoming the first Liverpool player to be sent off in his first two games for the club behind him.
Rhys Williams, who famously starred alongside Nat Phillips under Jurgen Klopp in the latter stages of the 2020-21 campaign, is reaching the end of the road at Liverpool. He could leave on loan in the next fortnight and will certainly depart on a permanent basis when his contract expires at the end of the season.
Liverpool’s success with bringing in young centre-backs has been mixed. There were high hopes for Billy Koumetio when he signed from French club Orleans FC in 2018 but he didn’t kick on and made just two senior appearances before moving to Dundee.
Sepp van den Berg only played four times for the club but a series of impressive loans aided his development and enabled Liverpool to make a healthy profit as they paid PEC Zwolle £4.4m in 2019 and sold him to Brentford for £25m five years later.
The pathway is there for both Ndiaye and Ndukwe. It’s a gamble but Liverpool believe they have mitigated the risk with the homework they did before beating off competition from clubs across Europe.