Liverpool academy director Alex Inglethorpe only wants the cream of the crop in the Reds' youth side.
Liverpool are a club which puts a strong emphasis on their academy and the likes of Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher are just some of the recent names who have forged very successful careers with the first team after coming through the youth ranks.
Inglethorpe has now gone on to speak regarding the youth policy at the Merseyside club and has stated that he only looks to recruit youngsters who genuinely stand a chance of making it into the first team.
"The definition of Academy is that it should be a place of elite," Inglethorpe told the Liverpool Echo.
"It should be the case that when you look a player or their parents in the eye, you think there's a genuine chance of them ending up playing for Liverpool.
"Often it does the parents and the players a disservice if you are taking boys just to fill up numbers. That doesn't seem right to me. Often those boys will go to other clubs, be happy and stand a far better opportunity themselves by playing regularly.
"The changes started last season. We had around 235/240 before, it's just under 200 boys now and that figure will head south still. The focus here now isn't on having a specific number in each age group, it's around wanting a specific level of quality in each age group.
"There is no perfect number to have in an age group. If there are 25 boys, all unbelievable talents, all gifted, all got a real chance, then great we'll have 25. But there's no point having 25 boys in an age group if you think only 10 have the long-term potential to stay on and become scholars or under-21s players. It's not fair to the remainder of the group.
"In an Academy there is a huge pull on coaching, resources and the level of attention you can give each family. We have looked at the level of quality and tried to be as fair to everyone as we possibly can."