Seven academy products have ensured that Liverpool top a prestigious list of Premier League talents.
Liverpool have always taken pride in their academy, which has produced the likes of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen and Steve McManaman in the modern era.
Their move to the AXA Training Centre signalled their continued commitment to blooding young talent.
And, as detailed by one study in particular, their approach is paying dividends.
Liverpool academy the most prolific in the Premier League
Industry experts Football Benchmark have created a study detailing the best academies in terms of successful transitions from the youth setup to the first time.
For their criteria, a ‘successful transition’ means the player in question must have played 450 competitive minutes for the first team and have spent three full seasons at the club’s academy between the ages of 15 and 21.
With seven players fulfilling this quota, Liverpool were ranked the most successful team in the Premier League.
Benfica (12), Ajax (12), Sporting Lisbon (11) and Barcelona (8) were the only teams to have produced more successful transitions than Liverpool.
This hit rate goes a long way to explaining why Liverpool have generated profit of £171m from their academy in the last decade (CIES Football Observatory).
The report does not break down exactly which of the seven players met their criteria, but the Reds currently have 11 academy players on the books who have made it to the first-team.
They are: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott, Nathaniel Phillips, Jarell Quansah, Caoimhín Kelleher, Stefan Bajcetic, Conor Bradley, Rhys Williams, Bobby Clark and Ben Doak.
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Liverpool could be sitting on FFP goldmine
Under the terms of financial fair play (now called Profit and Sustainability Rules, or PSR), sales of academy products count as ‘pure profit’.
Essentially, this means that the club do not have to offset their sale fee against the amount it took to bring them to the club.
This is why the likes of Chelsea have listed academy products as the first names up for sale in their bid to satisfy the Premier League’s PSR system.
While Liverpool are not in danger of breaching PSR in the current period, their prolific academy is a stellar insurance option if they do every find themselves at risk of going over the threshold.
After the Premier League’s AGM this week, Liverpool know the PSR environment they will be operating in next season – and potentially beyond.
It was expected that a squad cost control ration would be introduced a financial anchoring system, which would limit clubs to spending a maximum of 85 per cent of their turnover on recruitment and wages.
But that system has only been introduced on a ‘shadow’ basis in 2024-25. Fundamentally, this means next season is a trial run and the rules will not be fully enforced.
Liverpool therefore know that, for the time being at least, they must still operated within the £105m allowable loss limit over a rolling three-year period.