Liverpool's director of football strategy, Damien Comolli, has told the clubs official website that a priority for the club is the development of young British or English players. When asked whether it was owner John Henry's desire to bring young players to the club, which helped him decide to come to the club, Comolli agreed.
He said: "When you say every big club in Europe will be after young players, that's obvious, but we really want to concentrate on getting young English or British kids.
"I think that's very important if we want to keep an identity to get those kids into the football club. That's the first thing.
"Usually the big European clubs don't come into England to get players so there will be massive competition in England with all the other big clubs.
"You can go down one route which is spending hundreds of millions of pounds or you can go down another route which says we have a strong identity, a strong philosophy, we know what we want to do, we know the club has history and we know how important the academy has been in the past."
Comolli added his role is to help with this process and bring the kind of players to the club, which will secure Liverpool's future.
"You need to spot them, identify them, make sure they've got the right attitude, the right mentality, the right spirit that you want them around on a day to day basis," he said. "That's the thing. The second thing is convincing them to come.
"That requires a lot of time, it requires a skill set from the scouts, or from myself, or from Kenny [Dalglish] because I'm sure Kenny can have a massive impact if he meets the kid or his parents."
Reds boss Roy Hodgson has endured a torrid time of late, but Comolli has the greatest respect for Hodgson and was excited to work with him and Dalglish.
He said: "We [Hodgson and him] already had a good relationship from my time at Spurs. We've been talking at length since I joined, several times a day on different issues and different matters, we talk about everything.
"I think this relationship is going to grow in a positive way, that's for sure. We see things the same way. So far everything we have discussed we totally agree and have the same vision. I expect that's going to go on.
"When you see the clubs he has managed and the national teams he has managed, what he's done at Fulham, what he's done at Blackburn and obviously being in charge here.
"In Switzerland maybe people don't realise how difficult it was when he was there, he changed the mentality of the people, tactically he brought new stuff in and I have got a lot of respect for him."
Comolli insisted he was not there to take over the transfer decisions from Hodgson, but said he would help in any way he could with potential signings.
"The manager's decision and the manager's opinion on a player is absolutely crucial," he said. "As far as I am concerned, and the way I have always worked in this job, is do not bring a player in who the manager doesn't like because there's no point.
"In the short term, in my position you always think of the next window or the next two windows and I think everybody has got this in mind.
"As I've just joined, we've got only a few weeks to prepare for the window but we are also looking at the summer transfer window."
