This has been a season like no other. And for several young Liverpool hopefuls, that will forever be the case.
Stefan Bajcetic, Bobby Clark, Ben Doak and Layton Stewart were all given their debut taste of senior football by Jurgen Klopp, while Melkamu Frauendorf had only a second outing and the likes of Luke Chambers and Jarell Quansah made the bench for the first time.
For some, it may well be about as good as it gets. Others can expect it to be the start of a lengthy Anfield career. All will hope it is the springboard for future success.
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But what happens if you don't get such an opportunity? What happens if you're an Academy player who knows they will probably never have a chance of playing for the Liverpool first team?
Tom Clayton is one such youngster. Having joined the club at under-nine level, he made more than 100 appearances for the various youth levels and appeared five times for Scotland under-21s, scoring twice. Senior involvement at Liverpool, though, eluded him, and in the summer the centre-back moved to League Two side Swindon Town.
What's more, it was his decision. "I still had a year left on my contract, but I knew I wasn't in the first-team picture, which was fine," says Clayton, speaking to the ECHO. "I had known that for a while. I was itching and craving, probably about six months before, for the next challenge, to get some experience and to find out if I could hack it. That is the big question when you're with the 23s - can you deal with the first-team environment?
"I felt by that point I'd played enough games for the 23s in different positions. I wanted the next step and was asking people about things, and in the summer Swindon came up. I spoke to Jay Spearing about playing at Swindon, I had conversations with Alex Inglethorpe (the Liverpool Academy manager) who is always very honest and open, and it seemed the perfect fit for me."
Clayton adds: "I never thought I was going to be a Liverpool player, if that makes sense. I worked my heart out to get to that level, but you can't expect and be given that opportunity to become a Liverpool player. It just doesn't work like that at one of the best clubs in the world. I'd known for a while that my career would be elsewhere, I just had to squeeze as much as I could out of the environment and the opportunities I was given. Alex used to say to be like a sponge and soak it all up, and I tried to do that. It was the right time for me to move on."
Such almost brutal honesty is laced throughout the conversation as Clayton - who was a popular figure at the Academy - reflects both on his time with the Reds and what he hopes is to come in his career. Certainly, the 22-year-old has long possessed a grasp of the reality that, at a club like Liverpool, coming through the ranks is very much the exception rather than the norm.
"I never really thought at one moment 'I could make it as a footballer' or 'I have made it'," says Clayton. "I was always thinking 'what if I didn't make it?'. In school I knew had I had to crack on with my studies as I'd seen how ruthless and cut-throat the game can be. You only need a bad six months and then you can be forgotten about and pushed to the side.
"I was just rolling with it each day and trying to prove myself. There are always things to work on, or those who doubt you. Even now I don't think I've made it. I still want to climb up higher and push on. That's my attitude to it.
"At the Academy, Liverpool try to help with that overall attitude but a lot of it has come from my mum and dad. I was never the gold medalist, I was always middle of the pack scrapping to survive, so I was used to that. My parents have always tried to kept me at it, be never too high or never too low. My dad comes to every game and is always good at being honest."
Indeed, Liverpool, like other academies, hold great stock in preparing youngsters not just for senior football, but also life in general. They know not everyone will make that final step to the professional game.
"Phil Roscoe (Liverpool's former Academy player care manager who moved to Aston Villa in the summer) was brilliant at that," says Clayton. "He was always on the phone to you, checking if you are all right, and he was always putting on different workshops to open your eyes about things outside of football. Alex was brilliant at that as well, at making sure you remained grounded."
As Clayton was moving through the age groups, he broke into the U18s in the 2017/18 season under Steven Gerrard, who was taking his first steps as a coach and manager. "It was quite surreal," says the defender, who hails from St Helens. "I grew up watching him on the telly for Liverpool and England, and you're kind of in awe of him. Even when he was coaching, he'd join in every now and again and could have still been playing, 100%. He had an aura and presence about him in a positive way, and you could tell he was going to go on up the coaching levels. Even now I look back and think 'wow'."
Another important development was the first team moving in alongside the then U23 squad - now U21s - in the new £50m AXA Training Centre in November 2020 on the same site as the already existing Academy.
"There were a few occasions I got the chance to train with the first team," says Clayton. "There were more players getting the opportunity since the move to Kirkby, instead of it being a 15-minute drive it was through one door and you're there. That did help.
"But round the other side is a different ball game altogether. The level is frightening. I played centre-back and the first time I was up against Divock (Origi)... wow. He was quick, let's say that. Virgil (van Dijk) caught my eye straight away, just his presence. He is big and coaches the session without even touching the ball, just with his voice. That's something I learned. For a centre-back, it was pretty special to watch."
Clayton also featured in the EFL trophy, Liverpool's participation in which has been called into question with their U21 side having lost all 12 games over four seasons, albeit one of the losses coming on penalties after a draw.
Nevertheless, he acknowledges the worth of the competition. "Because of that, I kind of knew what I was letting myself in for at Swindon," says Clayton. "If you've just played U18s and U21s you are probably not that educated on the lower leagues and you might think 'oh League Two, that's rubbish'. But when you play them it opens your eyes. There are some unbelievable players in this league that for whatever reason it hasn't quite worked out at a higher level."
Clayton signed off his Liverpool career by captaining the U23 side to a 1-0 victory over Burnley in the Lancashire FA Senior Cup final in May. "That was nice," he says. "I'd played with a few familiar faces in that game, I'd played with Rhys (Williams) through all the levels so it was nice to play my last game with him. I'm still in touch with a lot of the lads. I've just got off the phone to Paul (Glatzel) and I text quite a few of them, I sent a message to Dom (Corness) before on his new contract. It was a good bunch."
So to Swindon. Clayton made his debut as a half-time substitute against Salford City in August and has already appeared 17 times this season for the Robins, and expects to soon be recovered from the injury that has ruled him out the last few weeks.
"I'm really enjoying it," he says. "I was a bit nervous coming down here because it was something completely different. I'd only ever really known going 10 minutes down the road to Kirkby, and by the time I was 17 or 18 I knew everybody in the building.
"Coming to Swindon was a bit daunting at first but I've settled in quite well. It's probably one of the best things that has happened to me. The football is totally different at this level. At the Academy there's probably no more than 50 people watching the games, but Swindon average about 9,500 every home game. That's the main difference before you've even kicked a ball you have those people for whom Swindon Town is their life. It's like a religion.
"You can't hear the individual mutters as you might do at Academy level, but they give you that buzz and adrenalin. There's also a greater expectation - Swindon have been in the Premier League - where you have to win. In the Academy you can play well and get beat and that's kind of accepted, whereas at Swindon it's just about the three points, no matter how you get them. You are playing for people's livelihoods and you get a grasp of that pretty quickly.
"Then there are the type of players you come up against. Now, I'm quite tall, but you're almost looking up at some of these strikers. They sometimes seem to weigh 20 kilos more than me, but you have to find a way to adapt. I've done okay, touch wood, with those battles.
"I came on for my league debut at left-back, and I won a 50-50 tackle, nothing major, but we were down to 10 men and it got the fans out of their seats in the stands and I thought 'okay, this is what it's about then!'. That was the moment I thought 'this is what they want'."
Clayton, of course, is not the first Liverpool Academy graduate hopeful of stepping down to go back up with Conor Coady, currently part of the England World Cup squad in Qatar, the prime example of what can be achieved.
"It's certainly not the end," he says. "There's a clear pathway back up the leagues if you are good enough and performing. It comes down to you, really, whether it's through promotion or changing clubs. There are many people who have dropped down to get games to then get back up.
"I'm only 22 and had a decent amount of games already at this level. I'm not one to set targets about how many games I want to play or be at a certain club. But the target with Swindon this season is promotion, definitely."
Given his refreshingly frank attitude and ongoing commitment to developing, you wouldn't back against Clayton finally making that senior Anfield bow - even if it's in opposition to Liverpool.
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