Great win for the youngsters.

From the New York Times today: At Global Clubs, Local Players Serve as Connective Tissue By RORY SMITH FEB. 6, 2018 Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold, 19, grew up in the city, and knows how children revere the club’s local players. “I can relate to the kids,” he said. “I know what impact it can have just to show that it is possible.” CreditRob Stothard for The New York Times LIVERPOOL, England — Trent Alexander-Arnold shuffles uneasily on his feet. He is standing in the assembly hall at St. Cuthbert’s, a Catholic primary school in Liverpool, a few minutes’ drive from the part of the city where he grew up. About 50 or so children sit on benches in front of him. Some beam with pleasure. Some whisper excitedly. Most just stare at him, as if he has descended from another planet. This, certainly, is a new world for Alexander-Arnold. It is barely more than a year since he made his Premier League debut for Liverpool, his hometown team, and a few months since he scored his first goal. He is 19. He remembers what it was like to be one of those children, eagerly hoping for a visit from Steven Gerrard or Jamie Carragher, and he still finds the idea that he might now be anyone’s hero a little strange. “It still hasn’t caught on for me, really,” he said. On a cold Friday morning in December, he is here on behalf of a local charity called An Hour for Others. The organization has prepared hampers, packed with food, to be handed out to some of the most underprivileged children at the school. Photo Alexander-Arnold has volunteered for a community charity, An Hour for Others, on his own time since his academy days. CreditLiverpool FC It is the sort of initiative most Premier League teams — most sports teams across the planet, in fact — run every Christmas. Players visit fans in the hospital, or arrive unannounced at schools. Alexander-Arnold’s visit to St. Cuthbert’s is different. He is here with the blessing of his club, but not at its behest. He has not been sent here as part of Liverpool’s community program. This is his morning off — he is due in for training at 2:30 p.m. — and this is how he has chosen to spend it. The concept behind the program that connected him with St. Cuthbert’s, An Hour for Others, is simple, self-explanatory. One of the group’s founders, Kevin Morland, a painter and decorator, decided that his time and skills could help those in need more than his money. He started off redecorating children’s bedrooms in some of Liverpool’s most deprived areas at no cost to residents, and slowly the concept spread. Now, An Hour for Others offers everything from cooking classes taught by professional chefs to dance, yoga and science sessions. Some people volunteer their time, others their equipment or access to their property. Photo Alexander-Arnold after scoring against Swansea this season. CreditPhil Noble/Reuters Alexander-Arnold was still just a hopeful at Liverpool’s academy when he became involved. His mother, Diane, recommended one of the charity’s first beneficiaries to Morland and his partner, Gill Watkins. Alexander-Arnold, in his midteens at the time, was summoned early one morning to help load boxes of donated toys into Morland’s van. From that point, he said, he was determined that if he ever had a career as a professional he would use his success to promote the charity’s work. Together with Kris Owens, whom he called his best friend at Liverpool’s academy, Alexander-Arnold sketched out a plan years ago. “We said that if either of us made it, we would help out the charity,” he said. Over the last decade or more, the academies of Premier League teams have morphed into factory farms, designed either to generate talent or create revenue. Clubs invest millions every year into scouting, recruiting and training the brightest young prospects, with the aim either of unearthing future first-team stars or mass-producing players to be sold, preferably at a healthy profit. Clubs have built state-of-the-art facilities that resemble, more than anything, vast industrial complexes. It is fitting: Youth development has become an exercise not in education, but heavy industry. Photo Outside the Kop at Liverpool’s stadium, Anfield. Liverpool F.C. prides itself on its connection to its city, even as the economics of modern soccer require it to promote itself as a global brand. CreditRob Stothard for The New York Times Accordingly, the conversation around which academies are succeeding and which are failing is based solely around their output of professional players. At best, academies are seen as existing solely to bring talents into the first team. At worst, they are seen as an additional source of income, a way of bringing in money that can then be invested in the transfer market. To maximize their usefulness, clubs have long signed players not just from around Britain, but from across Europe (and sometimes farther afield). All clubs cherish homegrown players — not least because, in the Premier League and the Champions League, a squad must contain a set number of them — but few care anymore where home actually is. Cesc Fàbregas was born and raised in Barcelona, but counted as a homegrown player at Arsenal. Andreas Christensen, a Dane, is the apogee of Chelsea’s youth system. That unapologetically internationalist, industrial approach is understandable, given the intensely competitive environment in which clubs exist, but it means one significant element has been lost. Local players are not desirable because they are cheap, or plentiful, but because they bond a club to its community. They give it a sense of place. “My house is just over there, the one with the purple bins,” Alexander-Arnold said as he drove to another appointment with An Hour for Others, at a community center not far from Liverpool’s Melwood training facility. Photo Alexander-Arnold says he still finds the idea that he might be anyone’s hero a little strange. “It still hasn’t caught on for me, really,” he said. CreditRob Stothard for The New York Times Liverpool, the city, is not simply a place where Alexander-Arnold works; it is his home. He has a curious family connection to Manchester United: His maternal grandmother, Doreen Carling, is mentioned in Alex Ferguson’s autobiography as the great manager’s “first steady girlfriend.” They dated for 18 months or so as teenagers in Glasgow “before it suffered the fate of most first romances and petered out,” Ferguson wrote, and ended completely when Carling moved to New York and married. (Because of this, Alexander-Arnold, technically, is eligible to play for the United States national team.) More remarkably, one of his mother’s cousins, John Alexander, was for a long time Manchester United’s club secretary. Ferguson once asked Alexander-Arnold, not long after he had first signed to join Liverpool, why he had not tried to join United instead. “My mum doesn’t drive on motorways,” was the immediate response. In reality, though, Alexander-Arnold wanted to be a homegrown player, in the truest sense of the term. He is from this city and he is of it, too. He points to the park where he used to play soccer after school, where there were “always a few people looking for trouble.” He has friends who found it, and whose lives have diverged drastically from his as a result. He still lives with his mother, albeit in a slightly more upmarket suburb, but still feels the pulse of the city. That is part of the reason he wanted to help Morland and Watkins. Even while leading the relatively sheltered life of a professional soccer player, he “sees the challenges people face, hears about things people are going through.” He is aware that if he were not giving back, his friends “would ask me, ‘Why not?’” Though he is not yet used to the smiles and the stares, he feels the responsibility, “as a local lad, to get involved,” just as the likes of Carragher and Gerrard did before him. “I can relate to the kids,” he said. “I know what impact it can have just to show that it is possible.” In the ruthless, globalist Premier League, such considerations seem quaint. What fans, owners, managers and players want is success — this weekend, this season. A team having a local heart is no more than a sweet anachronism. What matters more is that clubs have top-class players, not where those players are from. Yet the enthusiasm with which Liverpool has embraced Alexander-Arnold suggests that something, in the rush to industrialize youth systems, has been lost, and is being missed. Clubs are now international brands, with worldwide appeal and distant horizons. At heart, though, they are still local institutions. They do not exist on a different planet. They represent a place, and sometimes, still, they reflect one, too.

Blackburn don't have a crowd they have a jury

Sad to see another giant go.

Thankfully he loitered with intent.

Anyone got a sense of why he seems to go off the boil at each club he has been loaned too?

From the video evidence he has a bit of a swagger about him. Unless he scores 10 minutes before making his debut, he is a total set up to be a target of the Blackburn moaners.

Tim is not a pillock Definitely a Rover

Fascinating read

Always think of Carlos Kickaball whenever I saw his name - courtesy Alan Sugar

Oh how sweet. My own little pet troll.

We didn't so much lose as shoot ourselves and surrendered.

https://thesternfacts.com/trump-jr-now-tied-to-banker-behind-russian-money-laundering-scheme-6664d24642fc This article is all about Donald Trump Junior's alleged involvement in money laundering. Until you read to the bottom and see a starring role for Blackpool FC.

Really pleased for the lad for the way he is taking his opportunity.

Never mind the stadium, would you go to Yekaterinburg??? It is only 1,890 km east of Moscow.

How Lil Fucillo wasn't killed by that I will never know. Somersault at least 5 ft off the ground and landing head first onto a frozen surface. Killer also ended Bobby Davidson's career effectively when he "block tackled" ie body slam with every bit of him hitting the Leeds man. Has to be said Davidson was unstoppable that game until Killer won that tackle- fairly according to the ref. Rovers won 2-1 in the end if I remember correctly. And that infamous Pompey game:

Great to read this post. Really pleased that the consensus is that Tomlinson did really well. It will be good if all the players understand that a suspension means a fight to get back into the side. Peterborough have the league's joint top scorer and had they maintained their first half lead would have been right back into the scrap for a lay off place. Yes Rovers have glaring inadequacies but what we are playing have even bigger shortcomings. Will be devastated not to ge automatic promotion from here. We are scoring with a freedom rarely seen and have enough quality in the side that passing movements can tear the opposition apart- any opposition in this League. Yes we are terrible compared with what we used to be under Sam but our terrible looks to be too good for this division.

Big challenge now- don't let in another one.

Definitely give Conway the wide berth.

Have to admit that I have a bad feeling about this one. Posh have a goal machine who is bound to unlock our defensive frailties. This is an absolute must win for them or they are going to be chasing shadows rather than a play off place. Sorry to be doom laden but this great unbeaten run against top half teams will be under huge pressure at London Road.

Well this thread has rather tailed off...

Just seen the penalty- reminded me of Gerald Ashby's Berg v Man U. It was that bad a non-penalty.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/41944602 With detailed timeline of the smelly stuff

Those of us who smelt something amiss amongst the players as well as in the management...

Brilliant job and many many thanks Glenn and Ste B! All the very best to the newbies! (Yes I know they have been around for ages and will be fantastic)