The Warm-Up: Liverpool have homegrown hero, but it's the end of Ross Barkley

Football is obsessed with numbers. But there’s one data point it has not yet broken down, analysed and quantified: the sheer goodwill when a local player does well.

Trent Alexander-Arnold is a Scouser. The only Scouser in Liverpool’s squad last night. He’s 18, and also their longest-serving first-teamer, having joined the club in 2004 aged six.

And he is not just filling in adequately for the injured Nathaniel Clyne, but absolutely smashing it.

When your teenage right-back thumps in a 25-yard free-kick in a Champions League play-off, it’s time to cast aside concerns about a lack of spending and simply enjoy the moment.

Similar story at Tottenham. The Warm Up thought Kyle Walker had done a Jessica Ennis – but no – he’s left and been replaced by Edmonton’s Kyle Walker-Peters. And the fans love it.

At the risk of fun-spongeing this segment, clubs are usually right not to back local talent.

Manchester United are criticised for their failure to bring though a crop of players like the Class of ’92.

In fact, United have produced a great many solid Premier League players since then.

And if Phil Bardsley, Robbie Brady, Fraizer Campbell, Craig Cathcart, Tom Cleverley, Danny Drinkwater, Jonny Evans, Darron Gibson, Paddy McNair, Paul McShane, Anthony Pilkington, Ryan Shawcross and Danny Simpson are no longer at Old Trafford, it’s because all are good but not quite good enough for Old Trafford.

Sure United might wish they hadn’t let Michael Keane go – or for that matter, first-generation Paul Pogba – but for the most part clubs shed their academy products for good reason.

In an age when top clubs have world-class players in every position (stop looking quizzically at Moreno, Lovren and Mignolet), it is futile to demand youth products sprinkled throughout the team.

Nor is this new. The Warm-Up remembers reading a Liverpool fan’s letter to FourFourTwo in 2004 urging the club not to buy a Michael Owen replacement, but to put faith in Neil Mellor. An admirable sentiment, but it turned out Fernando Torres and Luis Suarez were better.

But there does come a point where bang-average players become so expensive, teams will take a chance on a youth prospect instead.

That point may well have come yesterday.

Specifically, when Sky’s yellow bar informed that not only had Burnley bid £10m for Sam Clucas, but that Hull rejected it out of hand.

So sure, Liverpool could have spent £25m on someone like Joel Ward instead. But they wouldn’t have got much of up an upgrade, and they wouldn’t have had this:

Alternatively, you could just sack off Ross Barkley and pay £45m for Gylfi Sigurdsson.

It feels like a lot for a player who never quite made it at Tottenham, and who won’t so thoroughly dominate the goals and assists charts at Everton with more talented players – and set piece takers – around him.

But hey, Everton have Luka-kash burning a hole in their pocket and Sigurdsson is lovely to watch. So why on earth not?

For Barkley, the search continues for a club willing to pay him £150k-a-week – get to China quick smart, Ross, before the whole thing falls apart.

Barkley has skill, but routinely makes awful decisions in the final third and – at 23 – hardly qualifies for ‘work in progress’ status anymore.

He is what he is; an electric dribbler worth five screamers a season, but nobody’s idea of a reliable number 10.

Who says there’s no value anymore?

What better way for Stoke to honour the Premier League’s 25th anniversary than by increasing to five their number of players who have won the Champions League before and probably won’t again.

Jese Rodriguez (snark aside, actually a pretty exciting signing) will join Bojan, Darren Fletcher, Xherdan Shaqiri and Ibrahim Afellay in the Potteries – making Stoke the Premier League side with the most Champions League winners.

Oh, JT.

The first-ever Premier League Match of the Day was on the Red Button last night – you’ll be astonished to learn Adam Hurrey was among those watching.

Alas, the programme is no longer available, so you’ll have to make do with the first couple of minutes.

More Champions League playoff action tonight, as Celtic take on Astana in their first leg (19:45) - and there's more Championship action, also at 19:45.