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It was a game few at Liverpool wanted.

Three days after seeing their Premier League dream squashed, Brendan Rodgers took his side to Dublin, to fulfil a friendly fixture against Shamrock Rovers. No rest for the wicked, or the weary.

The Reds’ World Cup players were spared the trip, with Rodgers instead selecting a hybrid side, made up of fringe players and youngsters.

And after watching his side saunter to a comfortable 4-0 victory at the Aviva, he will have left Ireland enthused at the amount of young talent emerging from the club’s Academy.

Jordon Ibe stole the show, while Jack Dunn netted the Reds’ fourth goal, seconds into his first senior outing.

The form of others – Brad Smith, Ryan McLaughlin, Joao Carlos Teixeira, Connor Randall – also caught the eye. It’s been a busy summer in the transfer market at Anfield, but Liverpool are a club that is beginning to produce its own again.

And 2014/15 could well be a breakthrough year for some of those youngsters.

This pre-season has seen Ibe, comfortably the brightest of the bunch, continue to impress with the first team. The 18-year-old already has three senior appearances under his belt, and looks well set to add to that in the coming months.

In pictures: best shots from LFC's USA tour

A spell at Birmingham City last season – judicious use of the loan system has been a feature of Liverpool’s development of young players – has helped. Ibe, who already had Football League experience with Wycombe Wanderers prior to his move to Merseyside, knows the demands of senior football, both physically and mentally, and his progress this season will be carefully monitored.

As, you suspect, will be that of plenty of others.

Last season saw two U21 stars – Brad Smith and Joao Carlos Teixeira – make their first team bows, while two U18s, Jordan Rossiter and Cameron Brannagan, were named in match-day squads.

Smith and Teixeira are expected, at some point, to be allowed out on loan, while Brannagan is likely to continue his rise with Alex Inglethorpe’s U21 side.

Rossiter, though, could be knocking on the first-team door in 12 months’ time. It takes a special kind of player to excel as a holding midfielder at 17 years of age, but the former Archbishop Beck pupil has the aggression, the positional discipline and the distribution skills to shine in that role. His emergence could end up saving the Reds a lot of money in the long term.

And that, really, is the crux of the matter. Clubs these days invest heavily in their Academy set-up, in the hope of saving down the line.

Liverpool are no different. They have spent decent sums bringing the likes of Sterling and Ibe to the club, and are set to be rewarded handsomely in the future.

The same could apply to Seyi Ojo, an imposing 17-year-old midfielder who has made big strides with the U18s since joining from MK Dons, or Jerome Sinclair, who became the club’s youngest ever player two years ago, but has been plagued by injuries too.

Sinclair, like 15-year-old Yan Dhanda, was prised from West Bromwich Albion’s Academy, amid strong competition. Centre-back Lloyd Jones, meanwhile, arrived from Plymouth and is very highly thought of.

Others, like Rossiter, have been with the club for the duration. Randall, a versatile player who can operate in defence or midfield, joined the club aged eight, as did Harry Wilson, who last season made history by becoming the youngest player ever to represent Wales at senior level.

The 17-year-old is one of a clutch of hugely-talented young attacking midfielders at the club. Liverpool took another – Adam Phillips – on their tour of the USA, while Brannagan, Dan Trickett-Smith and Ryan Kent, in particular, have admirers. Sergi Canos, taken from Barcelona last season, is yet to truly shine, but has excellent pedigree.

Of course not all of them can make it. The Premier League is an unforgiving environment, and makes no concessions for age.

But the potential is huge. Liverpool have made big changes to their Academy structure in recent years, and the results are now beginning to come through.

Inglethorpe, who is likely to assume a more wide-ranging role, and U18s coach Neil Critchley are kindred spirits in terms of their attitude to player development, and in Rodgers they have a first-team manager who has frequently been willing to trust the untried.

Credit, too, must go to Frank McParland and Rodolfo Borrell, whose departures last year were greeted with surprise, but who have put in more than most to the revival at Kirkby. The same goes for Rafa Benitez and Pep Segura. This has been no five-minute operation.

All in all, it promises to be an intriguing year. With Champions League football back on the agenda, and Rodgers desperate for a tilt at a domestic cup, opportunities should be there for young players to shine.

Anfield expects.