'The boss loves visiting us'

It's been a frustrating couple of weeks for us with regards to the NextGen Series double header against Wolfsburg.

I felt we played poorly in the first game at Anfield and were somewhat fortunate to get a point thanks to a late own goal.

However, we produced a fine display in the away fixture last Wednesday and didn't deserve to go down to a 2-0 loss.

It's one of those strange situations that can arise in football from time to time. You can pull out all of the stops and come away with nothing and yet, on another day, you will be well below the standard you are capable of and manage to get something out of the game.

The defeat in Germany was particularly hard to take as I don't think the hosts could have argued had we gone in at the interval leading by three or four. That's not an exaggeration either. If you haven't seen the highlights on LFC TV, then you should check it out as we had a whole raft of clear-cut opportunities.

Wolfsburg rode their luck and in the second half they came out and struck two quickfire goals that really knocked the stuffing out of our lads. To our credit, we kept probing away and we could even have sneaked a point had we managed to convert some of our late chances.

It's all part of the learning curve for the kids. I've said in the past that playing against different cultures and styles is important to their development and they will still take positives from this tournament.

The travelling and the way we have approached it is almost gearing them up for what a European campaign would be like in the first-team. They've faced the physical approach of the Norwegians, the well-organised Germans and the flair players of the Portuguese outfit. They have also come up against referees of different nationalities so on the whole it's a great experience for them.

We now turn our attention to our penultimate Group 2 game with Molde this Thursday. We are well aware that qualification for the knockout stage is going to be Sporting plus one of the other three teams.

We've just got to go with the old adage of taking it one game at a time. We can't underestimate Molde. We need to do our job well in that game. If we do that we give ourselves a chance.

NextGen Series aside, things have been ticking along nicely for the Academy as a whole.

The league season is underway for all age groups and there have been some entertaining games already.

A couple of weeks ago, Kenny Dalglish was down here to watch some of the younger teams in action. That was the day after the first-team's unfortunate 1-0 loss at Stoke. It was fantastic to see him there as he could have decided to give it a miss after the frustrations at the Britannia.

But the boss still loves coming to the Academy and having him visit from time to time gives us all a big lift.

We also had Ian Rush here last Monday. He ran an indoor session with the U15 and U16 strikers and gave them tips on how to improve their finishing. It's not bad being able to call upon the club's record goalscorer in all competitions, is it?

I'm sure those lads will have taken every word he said on board and it'll be a day they remember for the rest of their lives. Hopefully we'll see the benefit of it out on the pitch in the months and years ahead. 

 Frank was speaking to Paul Hassall