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Highly-rated Liverpool Academy coach Pepijn Lijnders is expected to be promoted to the first-team set-up at Melwood.

Boss Brendan Rodgers is in the process of appointing new backroom staff after the club parted company with assistant manager Colin Pascoe and first-team coach Mike Marsh earlier this month.

And Lijnders is in the frame to make the step up from Kirkby - a year after he joined Liverpool as coach of the under-16s.

The 32-year-old Dutchman’s stock has continued to rise sharply over the past 12 months having demonstrated his renowned talent in youth development.

He started his coaching career as an intern at PSV Eindhoven in his homeland and spent five years with the Dutch giants before moving on to Porto.

In Portugal he worked at all levels from the under-sixes right up to the first-team squad over the space of seven seasons. Liverpool lured him away from Porto last August when he took over the under-16s from Michael Beale, who was appointed under-21s coach in the shake-up which saw Alex Inglethorpe appointed as Academy director.

Back in March, Lijnders spoke about how much he was relishing his new role on Merseyside.

“There are only a few clubs in Europe with more history and tradition than FC Porto and Liverpool is one of those clubs,” he said. “It made me proud that they made every effort to bring me here.

“I’m so pleased with Liverpool as a new club and new project. I felt from the start that it was the right time, the right club and especially the right people. They wanted to strengthen the coaching staff for the long-term.

“With Alex Inglethorpe and Michael Beale, I’m surrounded by professionals in developing top talent, talent with so much passion. This, in combination with the history of the city of Liverpool, the mentality of the supporters, the tradition and all the trophies, made the decision to represent the club a logical one.”

Lijnders also praised Rodgers’ willingness to put his faith in young players. Three of the Dutchman’s highly-regarded under-16s squad – captain Trent Alexander-Arnold, Toni Gomes and Yan Dhanda - spent time training alongside the seniors at Melwood last season.

“Our manager gives the Academy a chance and our Academy represents the values and the vision of the club,” he said.

“If you are good enough, you are old enough. Age is no barrier with Brendan Rodgers as the manager. Brendan is a manager who believes in youth development.”

Lijnders set out his footballing vision based on the “two universal goals” of “winning and development”.

His commitment to attacking football – coupled with the manner in which he demands his youngsters press relentlessly to win back possession - is certainly perfectly in tune with Rodgers’ own beliefs.

“I believe that winning is a logical result of development, so my complete focus is on planning and preparing my team and each unique individual to compete every day at a higher level. Team and individual development go hand-in-hand and make each other stronger,” he said.

“Football is an extremely creative and collective game, so there are many different ways to have talent. That’s why I believe that a coach’s playing style has to be based on giving each individual the chance to reach for good limits. Talent has to work in their speciality and identity and needs to have freedom of expression to strengthen their strengths.

“Learning is 10 times more valuable than teaching. We need to create independent individuals, who understand by learning, give them chances and freedom within a clear game idea to excel.

“The starting point of development is the passion and ambition of a player. What I’ve learned over the years is that there is one characteristically decisive factor that decides 99% of development - love for the game. Because if you don’t love it, you will never work hard and play enough to become really great.

“Everybody wants to win, but how do you prepare yourself to win? That is what counts. That is what makes the difference over a long period of time.

“Character development, self-initiative, self-responsibility and self-confidence are the best fuel. I believe that how you train, you will play, that you don’t win games at the weekend but by preparing yourself in the sessions. I really believe that my players are a product of their environment.

“Our style is to attack, with and without the ball. We realise that the game is played with one ball, our ball, and we steal it back wherever on the pitch and we use it to attack the opponent.

“It doesn’t matter who we play against, we will press them high and aggressively and we will attack and attack them again. You can make a top team or top players look bad by pressing them intensely and aggressively. This, in combination with the Scouse mentality, makes for a very effective path to success.

“We are responsible for creating a new generation, a generation who can create chance after chance at a high level, a generation who can break down defensive walls. Nobody knows what the future of football will look like. The only thing I’m sure of is that the defensive organisation of teams will be even better. We need to create players who can ruin this defensive organisation.

“The first team wants players who are able to open up games and speed up the attack. We are working on a daily basis, individually and collectively, on those offensive, productive, creative and attractive qualities.

“With guts, courage, faith and a great heart, we look for fast individual and collective actions to get behind the defensive line. ‘You play the game 20% with your head, 20% with your feet and 60% with your heart,” is a famous Dutch saying. It is how Einstein said it: ‘Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere’.”

Lijnders is likely to fill the role vacated by Marsh, whose contract wasn’t renewed. The search for a new assistant manager to replace Pascoe is still ongoing with Liverpool eyeing an experienced coach to work alongside Rodgers.