bluestevon
Player Valuation: £80m
The core of the team last season was built around
Pickford Tarkowski Branthwaite Mykolenko Garner Onana Gueye McNeil Harrison DCL
There’s a brilliant mixture in there of youth, players in their prime, and some experience.
We need a balanced squad with quality in each position, the right attitude and culture, and a mix of different age ranges. Branthwaite might not have developed into the player he is if he didn’t have Tarkowski next to him, Pickford behind him, and Mykolenko to one side. Put three less experienced players in those positions and maybe Branthwaite isn’t playing with the confidence and maturity he is now. Maybe Onana isn’t sold for 50 mill if he wasn’t rotated at times for the experience of Gueye and Garner.
I’ve seen enough bad squads at Everton that have been cobbled together with players who look like they’ve never seen each other before. For the first time in a while it feels there’s a culture of hard work in the team, a core of the squad to build on, and selection based on meritocracy and form not any other attributes.
Yeah it's just nice to see and it's really clear if you dig into the analytics side (given it's what my brother does over on RBM it's become something I've gotten into by proxy) that we are recruiting a very specific profile of player (trust me it's why I went all in that we we were after Lindstrom).
We are recruiting players who share a common set of basic fundamentals - (we will shift into a heavy pressing team is my prediction btw) but one thing is certain we are recruiting not based upon an interfering owner or backroom deals with certain favoured agents or on a manager liking a particular player, but based upon does a player's data analysis fit in with what we require.
It's refreshing to see and gives me real optimism about future recruitment.