"Ideally, you would want 23 or 24 and then have academy players of a sufficient quality to back them up. If you have more than 25, it is difficult to have a meaningful training session." Mark Hughes, Manchester City manager
"It has become all about resources. Clubs can now buy so many players that 10 or 20 guys who could be top players elsewhere cannot play." Johan Cruyff
Those comments were made within the past fortnight on a topic that will be much debated over the coming weeks – squad sizes in professional football. Among others who have had their say is Uefa's general secretary, David Taylor, who calls the situation in English football "ridiculous". England's record cap-holder, Peter Shilton, is "flabbergasted". Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, accepts that the numbers at Premier League clubs are "very high". Craig Lindfield, a Liverpool forward on loan at Accrington Stanley, finds it "frustrating". His team-mate Jack Hobbs, loaned to Leicester, finds his predicament "demoralising" and feels "stale".
There is no Premier League rule to stop one club having more than twice as many players as another, which is the case for Liverpool, who have the most professionals on their books and Bolton, who have the least. "Squad sizes are a matter for the clubs," is the Premier League's official line. Lindfield and Hobbs, both 20, are two of the 62 contracted players assembled by Rafael Benítez at Anfield, while Gary Megson has to make do with 27 at the Reebok Stadium. Even given the relentless, top-speed nature of Premier League football, and the demands of chasing four or five trophies, it seems a gargantuan number for any club to be able to choose from, or want to employ. And, in times of recession, to pay for.
Observer Sport's investigation into the Anfield 62, and the implications for the wider game, was met with bemusement everywhere – even from defensive Premier League representatives – whenever the figure was mentioned.
"Ridiculous. Sixty-two? You can only field 11 at one time," said Uefa's Taylor, whose employers insist on a 25-man squad limit for the Champions League. "Work it out for yourself. Training would be interesting with all these guys running about looking for 11 jerseys – you could have two full-size practise games." With plenty of substitutes.
Taylor is right. Even without the 17 players who have been on loan this season (see panel below) Benítez is left with 45, nearly twice as many as Hughes's ideal number of 24, a figure José Mourinho also insisted on when he began his successful tenure at Chelsea in 2004, while Luiz Felipe Scolari named between 23 and 25 as his ideal squad size when he took over at Stamford Bridge.
Should the Premier League clubs have a limit? "That's what we do in our competitions," said Taylor. "But that's for organisers of domestic leagues to decide among the clubs. We think it has benefits, it allows the introduction of other rules – like home-grown players. It's not just squad size itself, but the beneficial effect it can have, particularly on young and local talent. So the two measures go together.
"Uefa has been in the vanguard of this and we certainly feel it's very useful."
Taylor's comments echoed last week's views from William Gaillard, special adviser to the Uefa president, Michel Platini. "One proposal, which seems to be gaining a consensus, is limiting [the number of] professional contracts as we already do in the Champions League," Gaillard said. "But we would need to get the backing of the major clubs, of the associations running their domestic competitions."
Taylor was unsure what benefit Liverpool might gain from having so many professionals. "You'd have to ask them," he said. The club, when asked precisely this question, declined to comment. "It's an open question as to how many you actually need," said Taylor. "Is it 20, 25?"
Certainly not 62, then. It is not only Liverpool who have dozens on the payroll. Unsurprisingly, the other members of the Premier League's Big Four, who tend to hoover up all the major trophies, have the largest squads. According to their own official websites Arsenal can call on 59 players, Manchester United 51, Chelsea 46.
Liverpool, though, lead the way. According to most recent figures from Deloittes, the accountants who specialise in football, Liverpool paid out more than £77.5m in players' wages for the season ending in 2007.
A professional at a Premier League club, even one who is a long way from the reserve team, would earn a minimum of £1,000 a week, and most earn considerably more. If 30 players were trimmed from Liverpool's squad to leave 32 – still eight more than Hughes' and Mourinho's ideal number – the saving in wages would be several million pounds. Instead, Benítez has opted for quantity in his recruitment policy – remember the club are struggling to refinance their £350m debt by a summer deadline – and has to farm out countless players on loan.
For some, the dream of performing in front of a packed Anfield has translated into a grimmer reality of almost zero contact with Benítez and disillusionment about the future. "I haven't spoken to Rafa in a while," confirmed Hobbs, who was 17 when he signed from Lincoln and said he played 18 matches during a season in Liverpool's reserves. Hobbs wanted to play competitive football and is, he said, happy to be now closing in on 50 Football League appearances following loans at Scunthorpe and Leicester.
Gordon Taylor, head of the players' union, said: "Remember, there's only one first team and clubs are not always totally committed to reserve football. That means a heck of a lot of good players on the bench. We've just done a survey on the number of players loaned out. While some are successes it doesn't always work out that way."
Godwin Antwi is a 20-year-old Ghanaian defender who is concerned that his career is at a crossroads. Alongside Hobbs and Lindfield, he was a member of the Liverpool team that won the first of successive FA Youth Cups in 2006, defeating Manchester City 3-2. He has just finished a loan spell at Hereford, his fourth club since being signed by Benítez from Real Zaragoza in 2005. This season he will play no more professional football. He is finished with Liverpool. In the summer Antwi hopes his agent, who is based in Spain, can find him a fifth and, this time, permanent club. He is desperate to play regularly.
"There's no chance of me accepting a new deal as I won't play in the first team at Liverpool. I don't know why. When I signed, Rafa and [former chief scout] Paco Herrera told me, 'Do your best.' But I can't remember the last time I spoke with Rafa, not properly anyway."
Did he ever think the breakthrough might come? "When we won the FA Youth Cup – that was the time. City's team had Micah Richards, Michael Johnson, Ched Evans and Daniel Sturridge, all first-team players now. But Liverpool signed Daniel Agger and Martin Skrtel in my position."
Meanwhile, Lindfield is playing for Accrington Stanley, having started the season at Bournemouth after previous loans with Chester and Notts County. "I've been at Liverpool since I was seven – it's all I've known," he said. "Most young players who want to learn their trade would do it better in the lower leagues than in the reserves." This view was echoed by all the Liverpool loanees Observer Sport spoke with.
"You learn a lot more playing with people's livelihoods on the line. And it helps you mature as a person."
Lindfield, who has made 10 League starts since joining Stanley in January, was also a member of the Liverpool FA Youth Cup side and talks of it being considered a golden generation within the club. "The so-called Dream Team – Steve Heighway called us that. He was the academy head, but took a liking to our age group who were pretty much together all the way through. The under-18 coach usually does the Youth Cup, but Steve Heighway thought that highly of us he took over."
Lindfield, like Hobbs and Anwti, mentioned the City players in the 2006 final who had gone on to establish themselves. What of that Liverpool team? "Jack Hobbs has made a few appearances, and recently there's been Jay Spearing and Stephen Darby."
The three have made a grand total of nine appearances. "That's the difference between Liverpool and other clubs, young lads get more of a chance elsewhere," Lindfield added.
Is this because of the numbers at the club? "Yeah. It's a massive squad. All the professionals at Melwood [the club's training complex] – there's about 50 players in total," Lindfield said, somewhat underestimating the number. "There's only about nine or 10 English lads so that speaks for itself, doesn't it?"
Does that make it more difficult to get a chance? "With Liverpool having a Spanish manager he's got a lot of knowledge of Spanish football so he's brought in quite a lot of Spanish lads," said Lindfield. (There are nine on the books.) "Getting off to Melwood from the academy is supposedly the hardest step but you're in the reserve team of about 30 lads, and really you're as far away as you have been. It's not like the old days when there were six or seven reserves and the rest were filled by first-team players."
While Robbie Threlfall, another member of that victorious Youth Cup team, has just returned from a trial with Swedish club Djurgardens, Adam Hammill is at Barnsley having previously played on loan with Blackpool, Southampton and Dunfermline where he experienced the Scottish FA Cup final two years ago.
"At 18 you'd be naive to think you're going to break into Liverpool's first team. You'd have to be a Gerrard, Owen or Rooney. It's also a hell of a lot of pressure to be playing for your home-town team," said Hammill, a 21-year-old midfielder who has made seven League appearances since arriving at Oakwell last month.
"Darren Potter and Danny Guthrie were ahead of me [in age] and did well on loan. They ended up playing a few games for the first team. So if I do well I might get my chance. I'm a Liverpool player and want my future there. If not, well, the only way is down but you can try and work your way back up that ladder."
How do Liverpool monitor a player's development while he is on loan? "They evaluate you at the end of the season and send scouts to watch in certain games. But you don't get much feedback. The only feedback is off the manager you're playing for, your agent and your family."
Gordon Taylor and the PFA have done their own evaluation of players' careers. "Six hundred players each year join Premier and Football League clubs at age 16. Of those, 500 will be out of the game by 21. It's a big wastage and not good enough. We have got to look at improving the success rate of academies and centres of excellence.
"Those who don't make it at the top don't necessarily make it lower down. That can be a tougher set-up where skills and technique don't always count as much as strength and competitiveness. We're finding a big black hole between 19 and 21. That's a big worry to us, it's why we have to think seriously."
Taylor stressed that he was not in the business of limiting employment opportunities, but he was keen to see some adjustments. "There's a great deal of money invested. That's why we're very much in favour of a system whereby out of a squad of 25, for example, you'd have at least eight to 10, irrespective of nationality, come through a development programme at that club or in that country."
Regarding Liverpool, he was refreshingly frank. "From the sides that won the Youth Cup, I don't know if a player was given an opportunity at first-team level. It's amazing we focus on Stevie Gerrard and Jamie Carragher because they are just the last two homegrown players now in that team."
For central defender Hobbs, as with all those on the periphery hoping for a way in at Liverpool, this is a live issue. "I was talking to an old school teacher the other day. Look at our Youth Cup side – not one has broken into the first team. You get to a decision where you think, 'Is it worth playing reserve games and getting a little bit stale waiting for your chance? Or do you go out and get the experience?'
"He [Benítez] brought in Skrtel, and there's Agger, Carragher and Hyypia so I was down the bottom. I'm really grateful I went out on loan now and am chasing 50 League games."
Hobbs has the most first-team appearances of that 2006 side – all five came last season, including a lone Premier League start against Reading – yet the breakthrough never came. "I was thinking I could be involved a bit more. But then he [Benítez] went out and bought Skrtel for a record signing for a centre-back. It's quite demoralising when you're working to get your chance and they just buy in multi-million pound players.
"But Liverpool are one of the top clubs in the world. You wouldn't expect it to be easy. The way I look at it is if I play every game as well as I can I'm going to end up where I deserve. Ideally, I'd love to be playing for Liverpool every week, but the truth is it's going to be very difficult."
Ricky Parry, Liverpool's outgoing chief executive, is thought to have fallen out with Benítez over player recruitment. Apparently, it was a major reason why Parry was forced out. So how Parry's replacement deals with Benítez's penchant for stockpiling players could be interesting to watch. Given the background of the club's owners, the new man may be an American.
Uefa have followed the model of American sports. Major League Soccer insists on a season-long roster of 24 players, while American football and basketball have squad limits of 53 and 15 respectively. With Liverpool flying in the Premier and Champions League, Benítez is all-powerful. But a trophyless season added to the dire financial climate – and who knows if Tom Hicks and George Gillett will still be in control – might at least prompt a discussion about the Anfield 62. After all, Sunderland's Texas-based owner Ellis Short was so upset on discovering he was bankrolling 47 players that it caused the departure of Roy Keane.
And any wide-ranging debate over squad size and finances might, in the long term, be good for the health of football.
