'Path works between Kirkby and Melwood'

While plenty of youngsters from the club's U21s and U18s squad have gone across to Melwood for the occasional training session, there has been situations where players have come the other way.

On Tuesday, for example, Luis Alberto, Raheem Sterling, Jordon Ibe and Martin Kelly were all involved as the U21s beat Sunderland at Anfield...

We need to remember here at the Academy that our U21s side is also a vehicle for the first-team players and when they need to get minutes under their belt, we'll be more than happy to accommodate them.

I think it's great that in midweek against Sunderland we had Luis Alberto, who scored a hat-trick, Raheem Sterling, Jordon Ibe and Martin Kelly all playing with our young lads.

All the staff and the players understand that when a first-team player needs time, we have to do our bit because everything we do at the Academy is geared towards helping the first team.

So it's fantastic that the boys came down and they really made a difference. It was a really good game. I think everyone enjoyed it. Yes, we started quite sloppy, but we got better and better. There were some fantastic performances.

I thought Raheem was brilliant on the night and for me it was a great occasion. The manager was there to watch, as were the likes of Michael Owen, Steve McManaman and Rob Jones.

There are two sides to this situation, though. For the lads who are playing with the first-team players, it's a great experience and a vital one for their development. You can't deny that. Being with the senior players and playing alongside them is fantastic.

Obviously there is also a small negative, because simply, someone won't play. And we have to manage that. So, all the boys who missed out on that had a game prepared for them the next day which was carried out behind closed doors.

We played this game against Burnley and we had planned ahead for the match. We looked at it in advance and we knew that in this particular week we would get some first-team players coming down to the U21s.

So we played against Burnley and we had Luis Suarez take part in the game. We all know that Luis is a world-class player and for the young boys to be able to get changed in the same changing room as him, do their warm-up alongside him and pass him the ball, was superb.

Not all of our boys will play in the first team, but they can all say they've played with Luis Suarez, which is a fantastic achievement. He handled himself really well in the game and he worked very hard.

He did the warm-up in exactly the same manner as the young boys did and from start to finish he was a professional. I was very, very impressed with him.

The way we are managing this coming and going of players from the first team at the moment is about right I think.

The boss is very keen for us to play the same way as the first team. So for the likes of Jordan Rossiter, who played in the Anfield game, it's not so much of a transition when they play alongside senior players.

Our lads are used to going up to Melwood to train with the senior side as well and so they are familiar with some of the faces who come down to the reserves.

Personally, I think it's a great situation for the Academy when the players are used to playing there and they have that relationship with the first-team players.

They don't look out of place when they line up on the pitch with senior players - but they've still got to step up to get into the first team.

Last week we appointed a new U18s boss in Neil Critchley to help us bring these players through.

He's a very astute and quiet sort of guy, who goes about his business very well. He is very focused on improving the individual players and he's got a proven track record from Crewe. Now he's come to us and we're really looking forward to working with him.

Neil is one of only 16 in the country to have gained the highest possible qualification in the game after he was handpicked by the FA to take UEFA's first elite badge course.

It's great that the FA went through a club like Crewe to pick him out and send him on the course. He's done really well to get that.

I think qualifications are definitely important, but really it's more about how he coaches players and how he gets on with the lads. And I think Neil has a lot of humility and he's a really, really good coach. Mike Garrity will now revert back to his role as assistant manager of the U18s to help Neil.

This week also saw the likes of young Harry Wilson, who is just 16, go up to Melwood to train.

This is part of our plan as we want there to be a fluid transition in place, whereby young players can come and go from Melwood and there's nothing untoward and they don't look or feel out of place.

Sometimes the first team will want a player and we won't always send an U21s player, we'll send an U18s player, like Harry, who's doing particularly well and deserves to go up there.

But the lads have got to realise that the Kirkby Academy is where they play and this is where they train. It's a bonus when they go to Melwood - but they have to do their job here at the Academy first.

If they go up for two or three days and think they've made it, we'll let them know that they haven't.