Raheem Sterling. Marc Pelosi. Seyi Ojo. Jordon Ibe. Remember their names, and file their backstories for future reference. They’re at the vanguard of a new generation that might, just might, return Liverpool to accustomed authority. Simon Cowell may not care, but Anfield’s Got Talent.

Of course, the traditional terms and conditions of professional football apply. The value of investments can go down, as well as up. It takes years of unseen work to produce an overnight hero. None of Liverpool’s latest teenage sensations are a shoo-in to succeed. They merely have a better chance than most.

Sterling, who signed his first pro contract last week, is progressing faster than anyone has a right to expect. As I have written before, this time last year he was playing football in a park in Watford, with my nephew. Now he’s a YouTube phenomenon, a Liverpool cult hero on the fringes of Kenny Dalglish’s first-team squad.

Pelosi, also 17, had the option of enhancing his reputation as the best High School footballer in the US by accepting a scholarship to UCLA. An attacking midfield player who captained his country in last summer’s Under-17 World Cup in Mexico, he is of a different quality to previous products of the American system, like the overhyped, underachiever Freddy Adu.

Pelosi embodies the global dimension to the Anfield academy. It is a progressive place, a petri dish of evolving talent, drawn from conflicting cultures. Ojo, only 14, is just settling in after his move from MK Dons. He joined Liverpool when Chelsea, sensing their £1.5million bid for the England Under-16 striker was sufficient, took their eye off the ball. MK manager Karl Robinson, who spent eight formative years coaching at Liverpool’s academy, was the decisive influence.

Ibe’s father, a Liverpool fan, did the honours. The man-child, a striker, was signed from Wycombe in midweek. They had wanted to introduce him to the first team at 14, were refused permission, and waited until he was 15 and 244 days before making him their youngest senior player.

He scored on his league debut, against Sheffield Wednesday, and had trials at Manchester City and Tottenham before Dalglish made his sales pitch. The legend sold Liverpool’s history, but knew he was buying its future. Welcome to football, and its version of Santa’s sleigh.

One of the greatest attractions of sports writing is the insight it offers into the human condition. Scribblers like me see the best, and worst, in human nature, and increasingly the people one reviles are the most relevant. You don’t have to be a Manchester City fan to understand the reasoning behind my selection of Carlos Tevez as the player of 2011.

Yes, you did read that correctly. It’s Tevez, the snivelling wretch who considers a weekly wage of £200,000 inadequate reward for the chore of playing for City, the world’s richest club. It’s Tevez, the parody professional who believes the world owes him an extraordinary living.

Tevez is significant because he represents the most virulent form of a disease that is eating away at the fabric of the game. It is the sin of self, the idea that normal rules do not apply to a pampered minority, and the sycophants who scuttle in the shadows.

They will emerge, briefly, today when AC Milan officially open negotiations with City. Good of them, really. They’ve been pleading poverty, yet wooing the Tevez camp for the best part of a month. I hope, against hope, that City will play hardball.

Tevez says he will never return to England, a prospect that has yet to prompt an outbreak of national mourning. He also says he wants to play for Boca Juniors, his original club, a prospect that will not make him such an attractive meal ticket.

He taints the true pro, who takes one for the team. At his best, he is an inspirational player, a piratical personality who moulds occasions to his will. At his worst, as shown during his self-imposed exile in Argentina, he is a caricature of weakness and vanity.

I know this is supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men. But for Carlos Alberto Tevez, I’ll make an exception. Here’s to him enduring a thoroughly miserable New Year.

Old Trafford will be a hateful place on 11 February, when Liverpool play Manchester United. The ugliness of the controversy sparked by Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra ensures tribal rivalry, between two of the great clubs of world football, has mutated into something sinister.

Liverpool’s anger at the eight-match suspension of Suarez, by an independent FA panel, was unfettered, unprecedented in its intensity. The nuances of the judgement that the Uruguayan was not a racist, despite being found guilty of using racist language, were swept away by a tsunami of emotion.

Liverpool’s response, which foamed with righteous indignation, was extraordinary. It had the feel of one of those late-night emails, written in anger and frustration, and released without thought of its wider impact.

Yet it struck a chord with Liverpool fans who contacted me on Tuesday evening, and reflected the combative personality of Kenny Dalglish. His sense of loyalty to a greater cause has turned this case into a crusade. The silent majority – decent, fair-minded supporters rather than the normal ragbag army of keyboard warriors – found their voice.

Loose talk of witch-hunts helps no one, but the FA, desperate to be seen to be doing the right thing, is vulnerable to accusations of self interest. The severity of the punishment is politically convenient, since it highlights the laxity of FIFA and UEFA on the issue of racism. Sepp Blatter’s pathetic paranoia about the English will only increase.

Manchester United have wisely kept their counsel, but the influence of their chief executive David Gill, as a pivotal member of the FA board, highlights the dangers of the conflicts of interest which shape the English game. The FA must act immediately, to release full details of the case, to end the innuendo and hearsay that is directing debate.

Neither player comes out of this well. I did not know Suarez’s grandfather was black, until Liverpool’s statement, but someone who has spent five years playing in Europe is stupid if he does not understand the sensitivity of any derivation of the n-word. His disciplinary record is not one of a wet-behind-the-ears innocent.

Evra is another polarising personality. His role, as a shop steward in the France squad’s strike during last year’s World Cup finals, exposed his cynicism and lack of moral courage. He has the desperation of a player who knows, deep down, that he is a fading force.

I was at Anfield on that fateful afternoon, 15 October. I saw Evra incite a riot by kissing the United badge in front of the Kop. I noticed his fury with Suarez but, to be honest, thought it was nothing out of the ordinary. I was wrong.

Their bile will infect one of the showpiece occasions of the Premier League for years to come.

Mick McCarthy will be out of the firing line tonight, when Wolverhampton Wanderers play Norwich City at Molineux. He will derive minimal satisfaction from the knowledge that it’s the turn of Steve Kean and Owen Coyle to endure the indignity of being the man they love to hate.

Mick is a proper football man, you see. He feels the pain of his relegation rivals. He experienced it earlier this season when he heard Wolves fans join in a gleefully malicious chorus of “you’re getting sacked in the morning”.

He turned on his heels, and spat unprintable oaths in the general direction of the main stand at Molineux. He was still raging an hour after the final whistle, when he invited his critics for a full and frank exchange of views in the Wolves car park. Fortunately, no one was sufficiently unhinged to accept. Those gimlet eyes, and the oft-broken nose which lists to starboard, tell you he is not one to be trifled with.

I love him – and that’s not a sycophantic, self-protective sentiment. I’ve always found him a fair man, with a world-weary air that makes him football’s answer to Victor Meldrew. Truly, he does not believe some of the things he has to put up with.

He announced himself, on arrival at Wolves in 2006, with the immortal line: “My initials stand for Mick McCarthy, not Merlin the Magician.” We knew where we stood when he confided: “Anyone who uses the word ‘quintessentially’ in a half-time team talk is talking crap.”

A maverick in an age of manager speak, that strange concoction of clichés, common sense and half-truths, McCarthy educates and entertains. His is the raw humour of the dressing room, a place where cruelty happily co-habits with compassion. He is a perfectly balanced Yorkshireman, with a chip on each shoulder.

Players, with the conspicuous exception of Roy Keane, respond to his honesty, and intensity. He is, by his own admission, halfway through his most difficult task – establishing Wolves as an authentic Premier League team. He will get there in the end.

Football needs people like him. It needs clubs with tradition, like Wolves, to survive and thrive. But, according to Mick: “Opinions are like backsides. We’ve all got them but it is not wise to air them in public.”

I’ll shut up, then.

Karl Robinson is the youngest, and one of the brightest Football League managers. At 31, he has signed a new three-year rolling contract and is building a young Milton Keynes Dons team in his own image. Automatic promotion to the Championship is his aim, regardless of the odds stacked against him.

Money is tight at Milton Keynes, in a division dominated by clubs with an impressive heritage. Charlton, the two Sheffield clubs and Huddersfield all have bigger names, bigger budgets. Robinson also has to deal with the stigma of being in charge of Franchise FC.

Many are unwilling to forgive or forget the club’s relocation from Wimbledon, to a fast-growing new city. Milton Keynes was virgin territory for a league club, and a lot of work is being put into the community to help build a shared sense of commitment. I hosted a typical charity event with Robinson on Friday night.

The place was packed, and the cause, a local school for the disabled, deserving. Everything went well until the interval, when every football manager’s nightmare occurred. One fan, whose few brain cells had evidently been sluiced away by bucketfuls of lager, decided to tell Robinson how to do his job.

Managers tend to grow a thick skin because of the public nature of what they do for a living. But this fan took it beyond the realms of reason and decency. He began by criticising his team selection, moved on to abusing one particular player, and then started to insult the manager in deeply personal terms.

Robinson, who at the age of 29 became the youngest British holder of a UEFA Pro Licence, had given up his free time the night before a big game, Saturday evening’s surprise defeat by Preston. He defended himself and his team, but sensing the futility of the argument, had no option but to walk away.

It was cringeworthy stuff, and got me thinking about the limits of acceptable behaviour. Fans are entitled to their opinions. They tend to be treated poorly by authority figures. The so-called “bubble” policing – bussing in all away supporters – of Southampton fans in yesterday’s derby at Portsmouth was a typical example of the majority being punished because of the excesses of the minority.

But some supporters treat managers as inanimate objects, and shower them with unacceptable abuse. Robinson, at least, maintained his dignity. But he should not have been put in the position in the first place.

Get a life, people.

Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has the Dickens’ character Micawber principle off pat. Buy cheap, sell dear. Ensure your annual income exceeds expenditure. Result? Wealth, happiness, and herograms from the stock market.

The latest half-year results of his sportswear company – I won’t bore you with the name, which is corporate graffiti plastered across St James’ Park – were announced yesterday. They bucked the recessionary trend in what the brokers called “an especially fragile consumer environment”. Newcastle fans, frankly, could not have cared less.

They remember that this time last year Newcastle manager Alan Pardew was telling the world that Andy Carroll was not for sale “at any price”. That promise lasted until Liverpool offered silly money – £35million – for a player whose refuelling habits became a matter of national debate.

Pardew met Ashley yesterday, and was given permission to sign a new centre-half, probably Bordeaux’s Michael Ciani. Sochaux striker Modibo Maiga passed a medical earlier this week, and will confirm his £7million signing in January. AC Milan’s decision to allow left-back Taye Taiwo to leave has alerted Newcastle, whose need for a left-back is becoming acute. Graham Carr, their increasingly influential chief scout, has also been watching Guingamp winger Anthony Knockaert.

All very admirable, but four games without a win have increased fears of gradual decline. Pardew knows his owner well enough to admit that Newcastle are “vulnerable” to offers for key players such as captain Fabricio Coloccini, goalkeeper Tim Krul, midfield lynchpin Chiek Tiote and striker Demba Ba.

Tiote is attracting immediate attention, with Chelsea considering a £20million bid. That would represent a profit of £16.5million, Ashley’s ideal return on his investment. I know football is a febrile, emotionally driven environment, but fans are going to have to get used to the bleak logic of the balance sheet.

A prudent financial approach will win Ashley few friends, but it’s the future, now. The Geordie Nation – a daft phrase coined by Ashley’s predecessors, who became obscenely rich by selling the club – has hit lean times. January, to use Pardew’s phrase, will be “a minefield of possibilities”.

Fernando Torres is the equivalent of a Ferrari that has failed its MOT. It still looks good on the forecourt, but the showroom sheen is deceptive. It has had several owners, and no one knows for certain what’s under the bonnet. Can Chelsea find a buyer?

That’s the £50million question, even if the latest leaks from Chelsea suggest £20million might be nearer the market value for the Spanish striker, whose form and lack of favour has become a mutual embarrassment. At this rate, Andriy Shevchenko, the symbol of Roman Abramovich’s folly, is looking like a bargain.

Torres has scored only three league goals for Chelsea in 2011. He is a round peg in a square hole, a marquee player who cannot fit into the manager’s system. Today’s frenzy of speculation is the last thing André Villas-Boas needs, even if it will not come entirely as a surprise.

Should he sell him? I think so. Would he sell him? In a heartbeat, if he received the right signals that it wouldn’t cost him his job. Torres, in his current form and mood, is an unnecessary distraction. At 27, his best days are probably behind him.

I don’t doubt his strength of character, or natural ability. It is too easy to forget that he carried his boyhood club, Atletico Madrid, as a teenager. He was a huge success at Liverpool, a club with a similar emotional intensity, and admits he misses the intimacy of family life on Merseyside, where he lived in a complex with fellow Spaniards Mikel Arteta and Pepe Reina.

But even before he left Anfield, complaining at the chaos wrought by Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Liverpool’s unlamented former owners, there were warning signs. He was increasingly susceptible to injury. The physicality of his game, often overlooked because of the impact of his pace, had waned alarmingly.

The record move to Chelsea has been an unmitigated disaster. His body language has been appalling, and any club that signs Torres would be taking a gamble on the player he was, rather than the player he is.

Europe’s nouveau riche – Paris Saint-Germain, Monaco and Malaga – will get an early mention in despatches, as will Manchester United and, most intriguingly, Liverpool. Italy, and AC Milan, will beckon. Who will throw good money after bad?

Webuyanystriker.com is going to have a busy Christmas.

Managing Chelsea is close to being an impossible job. As André Villas-Boas is discovering, impatience, intrigue and innuendo come with the territory. The political dynamics of the dressing room intensify the pressure of overseeing a club which airbrushes people from history with Stalinist efficiency.

Respite, in the form of such significant wins as Monday night’s victory over Manchester City, tends to be fleeting. Even when the story is straightforward – Frank Lampard comes off the bench to rescue Chelsea’s season – the temptation is to read between the lines.

Villas-Boas still looks, and sounds, like an outsider. Lampard, the ultimate insider, was an appropriate hero because of the broader impact of his performance. He is an assured operator, and slipped in his intention to see out his Chelsea contract during his post-match TV interview.

These Skytastic rituals are dangerous, because they are conducted when emotions are raw and rampant. But Lampard measured his words. He was conscious of the power of his message. Not for the first time, I wondered whether Roman Abramovich missed a golden opportunity, to promote from within.

Lampard will have many options when he decides to stop playing. He has spoken of cutting his ties with football, and dabbling in the property market. Should he do so, he will be defying his very nature. Viewed objectively, he is a manager in the making.

The bloodlines are pure. His father Frank was an accomplished coach at West Ham. Harry Redknapp, his uncle, has ducked and dived with the best. Lampard junior has always led by example. Any young player can learn from his work ethic, strength of character and sense of duty.

The problem is obvious. John Terry has never hidden his ambition to manage Chelsea. He and Lampard are friends, and allies. Different characters, they have been defining personalities during the Oligarch era. Does Lampard have the ruthlessness to marginalise his mate?

I suspect he does. Should Villas-Boas stumble, Lampard will remain surefooted. The Chelsea job may be impossible but, deep down, it is irresistible. One day, Frank, one day…

The history boys gathered at the Emirates, when Arsenal celebrated their 125th anniversary with customary class. Thierry Henry wept at the sight of his statue – unsurprising, given it bears only a passing resemblance to him – and burbled about returning as manager.

Arsenal value continuity above all else, and are planning to define the club’s future with a new 10-year plan. Henry has a special status, as their record goalscorer, but he will not be the former player to whom Arsène Wenger turns.

Events in Amsterdam have gone under the radar in the UK, but the fate of Dennis Bergkamp has acquired sudden relevance. His coaching career could well be shaped by the outcome of an incendiary court case, in which Ajax legend Johan Cruyff is attempting to block the appointment of Louis van Gaal as a club director.

If Cruyff fails, and Van Gaal, the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager, is installed in a position of influence, it is likely to trigger the departure of Ajax manager Frank de Boer and his key staff.

That opens the way for Bergkamp, who was promoted to De Boer’s assistant after impressing with the youth team, to fulfil one of his most cherished ambitions, a return to Arsenal. Initially, this is likely to be as a forwards coach, but Wenger is known to have been impressed by the intelligence of his approach to his secondary career, and the clarity of his principles.

This wouldn’t be one of those borderline appointments, produced by the old boys’ network. No one can deny the emotional attractions of reuniting with a marquee player, who excelled for 11 seasons in the Premier League, but Bergkamp has become a star of the Dutch Football Federation’s coaching system since he passed his pro licence.

A move back to familiar territory would have historical symmetry. His arrival as a player, for a measly £7.5m from Inter Milan in 1995, signalled a sea change in attitude, and the end of the relevance of the “boring, boring Arsenal” chants.

His return as a coach, and eventual installation as manager, would protect Wenger’s legacy and signal progression into a new era. It makes a whole lot of sense.

The Special One is special, once more. Real Madrid boss José Mourinho has his demons under house arrest, and his ego is obeying the terms of its parole. He will never be measured, but he is no longer manic. He is at ease with himself, and those around him. What could possibly go wrong?

He knows the world will be watching him on Saturday night, when Real Madrid play Barcelona at the Bernabeu. The fixture defines Mourinho, and the boundaries of his ambition. He has never managed to disguise his anger that Pep Guardiola beat him to the Barca job, three years ago.

In the past seven El Clásicos, Barca have won three, Madrid one. The games have been acts of guerrilla warfare, in which 52 yellow cards and nine reds have been issued. Mourinho has not come out of them well.

When he tried to play Barca at their own game in November last year, Real were humiliated 5-0. When he parked the bus and attempted to counter attack, he was condemned by Alfredo Di Stefano for producing a team the Madrid icon dismissed as “a mouse to Barcelona’s lion”. Many managers have been sacked for a lot less.

Mourinho’s reputation hit rock bottom at the start of this season because of his cartoon antics in the Super Cup final. He poked his finger in the eye of Guardiola’s assistant Tito Vilanova, a hugely popular man who has just endured cancer surgery. The old jibes about Mourinho being an enemy of football were given a new airing.

He will never be a low-key character, because the camera has never lost its love for him, but he has worked assiduously behind the scenes to answer accusations of superficiality. He has moulded a team from a daunting collection of egos. He has rotated his squad intelligently, and has eased away from the spotlight.

Real have won their last 10 league games, their last 15 in all competitions. That equals a club record. They lead Barca, who have their sights on a record fourth successive La Liga title, by three points and have a game in hand.

Mourinho is still driven, of course. Don’t bet against him winning La Liga and the Champions League this season. After that, Old Trafford, and the legend of Manchester United awaits.