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Player recruitment changes on Merseyside

The last derby between Everton and Liverpool at Goodison had a predictably explosive end, but research by The Athletic shows that both teams are less reliant on local talent than they were in the 1990s.

In private conversations with The Athletic, multiple people working within player recruitment in the north-west of England have said that neighbouring regions such as Greater Manchester and Yorkshire offer a greater diversity of young players in comparison with Merseyside, due to those areas having higher populations and more people relocating to them.

The talent pool available to Premier League clubs is also so vast now that the focus is on nurturing the best players regardless of where they hail from rather than those on your doorstep.

Every professional footballer from Merseyside has a story to share from their upbringing. Many of them include street football and playing with their mates.

Rooney, for example, first turned out for a kids' team run by The Western Approaches, a pub where his father was a regular customer. Gerrard, who like Gordon years later played for Whiston Juniors, used to slide-tackle through the gravel on the Bluebell Estate in Huyton, on Liverpool's eastern fringe.

Football is still hugely popular and there are plenty of new initiatives to get today's kids playing in a safe, friendly environment, but it’s not like it used to be. The parks and streets of Liverpool are no longer filled with children playing football, although that issue is not exclusive to that city.

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