Liverpool’s Youth Travel to Prague in Europa League
- By A.D. Winn on February 17, 2011 01:15 GMT
Liverpool interim boss Kenny Dalglish has chosen to travel with a handful of the club’s exciting teenage prospects ahead of their 1st leg clash with Sparta Prague in the next round of the Europa League.
Jack Robinson, John Flanagan, Conor Coady, and Tom Ince are all expected to be named in the squad and could feature from the bench, alongside promising young attacking midfielder Raheem Sterling.
The 16-year old England youth international scored an amazing five goals in Monday’s 9-0 thrashing of Southend in the FA Youth Cup, and has been turning many heads at Liverpool's Kirkby Academy. The latest appears to be the new manager at Anfield, who is keen to include more home-grown stars in the first team during his tenure.
Sterling, formally of Queens Park Rangers before switching clubs for £500,000 last February, could become the Red’s youngest first-team player should he feature at the Generali Arena in Prague.
The inclusion of youngsters in the Merseyside squad list is in the absence of some first-team regulars - captain Steven Gerrard and centre-back Daniel Agger have stayed at home as they continue to recover from injuries, Christian Poulsen’s wife is in labour, causing him to miss the game, whilst Jonjo Shelvey is out for the rest of the season.
The club will also be without new strikers Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll; the former is cup-tied having featured in Europe with Ajax this season, whilst the latter, although travelling with the squad to the Czech capital, is still trying to shake off a thigh injury.
Liverpool have drawn four of their last five Europa league games, but after a decent run of form in the league, are expected to return to winning ways.
Sparta have only played two games this year, due to the Russian League winter break. They will be hoping to end a terrible run of form against English opponents.
Form
All Competitions:
Sparta: WDDLL (7 goals for, 8 against)
Liverpool: WWWWD (8 goals for, 1 against)
Europa League:
Sparta: LDWDD (9 goals for, 7 against)
Liverpool: DDWDD (4 goals for, 2 against)
