Liverpool's first team may now realistically be playing for pride over the closing weeks of the season, but it's a different story further down the ranks.

The under-21 side will tread new ground on Sunday when they entertain Crystal Palace at the AXA Training Centre on Kirkby in the first round of the Premier League 2 play-offs.

Under a new system introduced this season, what was previously two divisions has been merged into one 26-team league with each playing 20 games.



The leaders Tottenham Hotspur, for example, take on 16th-placed Aston Villa.

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It isn't dissimilar to the way in which the Champions League will operate next term, and U21s boss Barry Lewtas believes the change has been of benefit.

"Teams in our league are often at different points in their season, so the play-off situation keeps it alive for everyone," he says to the ECHO.

"You often don't have your best team available, so the play-offs give the boys something to play for in the closing weeks.

"It's a really nice, different dynamic and it's definitely added something to the season.

There have been certain times of the year - as with other clubs - where Premier League 2 players are with the first team and players have gone out on loan, and you have to build a team into something different together again."

Lewtas adds: "Every year is different and often in the course of a season is it can be different between transfer windows.

Paul Glatzel and Mateusz Musialowski both scored in that fixture, but Glatzel has since had a profitable second half of the season on loan at League Two side Swindon Town while

Liverpool will be without the injured Bobby Clark with concerns over the availability of several other key players, whether it be through fitness or potential first-team duty.

But Lewtas adds: "This season, whenever we have put a team out we have been competitive.

There have been some games this season where on paper the team hasn't looked as strong as other games, but we have been able to perform unbelievably well.

"We may not have won every game but we've held our own in most, and even when we've lost there have only been rare occasions where we haven't been too far away.
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