Ring master
Player Valuation: £90m
1-1 on 65mins - Sub Kyle John
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Ring master
Player Valuation: £90m
Fulham 2-1 on 78 mins - Sonny hilton
Ring master
Player Valuation: £90m
Fulham u23s 2 Everton u23s1 is final score
This is 1st game of the prem league cup this season ,and our 1st lost in this comp in 11 games - We had won 8 of the previous 10,Next game this comp is Plymouth in November-the other game was 1-1 between Plymouth and watford few days ago
This is 1st game of the prem league cup this season ,and our 1st lost in this comp in 11 games - We had won 8 of the previous 10,Next game this comp is Plymouth in November-the other game was 1-1 between Plymouth and watford few days ago
....thoroughly disappointing weekend.
Ring master
Player Valuation: £90m
John Ebbrell hopes the 2-1 Premier League Cup defeat to Fulham serves as “a wake-up call” after Everton Under-23s suffered their first defeat of the season.
The Blues’ assistant coach admitted the Toffees were “100 per cent not at the standards the players have set” in a first half that saw them trail at the break after Fulham winger Luca de la Torre’s opener.
Although substitute Kyle John levelled matters after the break, Jayden Harris struck the winner on 78 minutes to deny Everton in the opening group stage of this season's Premier League Cup.
Ebbrell conceded defending champions Everton did not deserve to win the game based on the first-half performance, as they failed to impose their usual fluid attacking style on the home side.
“With the standards we have set this season, the first half was unacceptable and was not up to the levels we have been at,” he told evertonfc.com.
“We gave them a start and then a goal – both goals were poor from our point of view – and you cannot do that.
“In the second half, we have come out and played to a level that we think was okay but not great. We scored a good goal and looked as though we were going to go on and win the game.
“But then we conceded a second really poor goal. It is difficult to win matches when you do that.
“I hope it is a wake-up call. We don’t like losing games but we didn’t deserve to win that one. The players have set their standards and 100 per cent we were not at those standards for the first 45 minutes.”
The two half-time changes made by boss David Unsworth – replacing Dennis Adeniran and Ellis Simms with Manasse Mampala and John – looked to have added fresh impetus to the Toffees.
Indeed, it was Mampala who set up his fellow substitute for the visitors’ equaliser.
But despite dominating the second period, Everton left Motspur Park with nothing. With plenty of Premier League Cup group matches to come, however, there is opportunity to right the wrongs of this result.
And Ebbrell insists the response will start in the very next training session back at USM Finch Farm.
“In fairness, in the second half, we came out and showed what we can do,” he added. “The two lads who came on at the break lifted us. I am pleased for Kyle because he has been out injured for a while. He has got in a good position and scored. That will give him a lift personally.
It is important that as a group we react now. You can’t win every game but there is a right way to respond when you do lose. Our levels were not at the right levels to win.
“It is a good opportunity now for the players to say, ‘Okay, that was a one off’. We want to now go on another [unbeaten] run and that will need a level of performance consistently.
“You can look at the competition now and say there are plenty more games to right the wrong of this result but looking at it now, we spoke in the dressing room afterwards about how important it is to get back to our standards.
“We will look for a reaction and we will get back to training with that in mind. The players have been left in no uncertain terms the standards the Club has and those that they have set themselves. We will look to be getting after the players ahead of the next game.”
The Blues’ assistant coach admitted the Toffees were “100 per cent not at the standards the players have set” in a first half that saw them trail at the break after Fulham winger Luca de la Torre’s opener.
Although substitute Kyle John levelled matters after the break, Jayden Harris struck the winner on 78 minutes to deny Everton in the opening group stage of this season's Premier League Cup.
Ebbrell conceded defending champions Everton did not deserve to win the game based on the first-half performance, as they failed to impose their usual fluid attacking style on the home side.
“With the standards we have set this season, the first half was unacceptable and was not up to the levels we have been at,” he told evertonfc.com.
“We gave them a start and then a goal – both goals were poor from our point of view – and you cannot do that.
“In the second half, we have come out and played to a level that we think was okay but not great. We scored a good goal and looked as though we were going to go on and win the game.
“But then we conceded a second really poor goal. It is difficult to win matches when you do that.
“I hope it is a wake-up call. We don’t like losing games but we didn’t deserve to win that one. The players have set their standards and 100 per cent we were not at those standards for the first 45 minutes.”
The two half-time changes made by boss David Unsworth – replacing Dennis Adeniran and Ellis Simms with Manasse Mampala and John – looked to have added fresh impetus to the Toffees.
Indeed, it was Mampala who set up his fellow substitute for the visitors’ equaliser.
But despite dominating the second period, Everton left Motspur Park with nothing. With plenty of Premier League Cup group matches to come, however, there is opportunity to right the wrongs of this result.
And Ebbrell insists the response will start in the very next training session back at USM Finch Farm.
“In fairness, in the second half, we came out and showed what we can do,” he added. “The two lads who came on at the break lifted us. I am pleased for Kyle because he has been out injured for a while. He has got in a good position and scored. That will give him a lift personally.
It is important that as a group we react now. You can’t win every game but there is a right way to respond when you do lose. Our levels were not at the right levels to win.
“It is a good opportunity now for the players to say, ‘Okay, that was a one off’. We want to now go on another [unbeaten] run and that will need a level of performance consistently.
“You can look at the competition now and say there are plenty more games to right the wrong of this result but looking at it now, we spoke in the dressing room afterwards about how important it is to get back to our standards.
“We will look for a reaction and we will get back to training with that in mind. The players have been left in no uncertain terms the standards the Club has and those that they have set themselves. We will look to be getting after the players ahead of the next game.”
Not just the first team then.
...I remember watching Keith Southern (and his brother) playing for our Academy sides. Another ex-player coaching at the club.
Southern, Tait, Ebbrell, Unsworth, Jeffers. Jevons and Sheedy in recent times, I dare say there are more.
T LEAFE
Player Valuation: £40m
But I dare say all are the best men for the jobs......
ToffeeLee1878
Player Valuation: £8m
U18s battered,u23s lose ,first team in the relegation zone,this club brings me nothing but joy
zzr45
#MURDERINGSCUM
From The Atlantic:
It was a list of names to make anyone sit up and take notice. Arsenal, Celtic, Leicester City, Leipzig and Newcastle.
Housed in the small temporary stand to the left of the Finch Farm dugout, club scouts congregated alongside leading youth football agents to examine the next generation of talent emerging from Everton and Liverpool.
While Marco Silva’s first team were preparing for their fifth league defeat in six matches in Lancashire — one that ultimately took them into the relegation zone heading into the international break — closer to home, another chastening chapter was also being written.
This humbling came in the mini Merseyside derby, the first instalment of a weekend to forget for Everton.
On the show pitch at Finch Farm, Everton’s under-18 side slumped to a 6-1 defeat to their local rivals. Everton actually led through a goal from highly-rated midfielder Tyler Onyango but chances went begging and the tide quickly turned. On the stroke of half-time, Liverpool scored twice in as many minutes and from there, they did not look back. By the final whistle, the score could have been anything.
Not so long ago, it was Everton’s under-18 side inflicting scorelines of this margin on Liverpool. In 2015, a side featuring Tom Davies raced to a 5-0 victory over their rivals on the very same pitch. Then, the balance of power in Merseyside football was firmly with the blue half of the city. Not now. The gap has closed substantially and England defender Trent Alexander-Arnold has come through the ranks at Anfield. Meanwhile Davies, a key performer in that 5-0 win in 2015, still finds himself on the fringes of Silva’s squad.
So what, if anything, has changed?
Liverpool, for their part, have substantially raised their game. One source told The Athletic that, until recently, there was a sense that the Anfield club would allow Everton more or less free rein on local talent and then buy whatever they needed at 16.
They have since shifted away from that policy and, under well-respected academy director Alex Inglethorpe, the focus in recent years has been on quality over quantity. Liverpool have cut academy numbers from 240 to 170 as part of the overhaul and are once again competing for top local talent alongside Everton and the two Manchester clubs. Alexander-Arnold’s rise is one that is said to be paying dividends during sales pitches to sought-after players.
Everton, by contrast, have had their own options limited by a two-year ban from signing academy players that links back to a breach of recruitment rules in the winter of 2018. A Premier League investigation found that Everton academy staff had offered final inducements to a player and his family if he signed with the club.
With competition for local players fiercer than ever, the ban has seen other clubs steal a march.
Liverpool are particularly active when it comes to recruiting youth players from other professional clubs, with Rhian Brewster and Elijah Dixon-Bonner — two of their brightest hopes — brought in from Chelsea and Arsenal respectively to plug gaps in their age-group sides.
Everton, as it stands, are unable to respond in kind. At the moment, much of the focus in the scouting department centres on finding players from within their usual north-west catchment area. Stoke-born Lewis Dobbin, a 16-year-old England youth international who played in the under-18 game against Liverpool, is just one talent that has been unearthed from this process.
Instead of targeting specific schools known for producing good footballers, often Everton scouts look at grassroots leagues in north Liverpool. There is confidence within the academy that the under-18 and under-16 sides are well-equipped. However, some believe signings will need to be made once the ban is lifted if Everton are to push forward again.
Like the first team, the under-18s and under-16s play a 4-2-3-1 formation — although this is about maximising the abilities of the players within those respective set-ups rather than a directive from Marcel Brands or Silva.
What those at the academy instead attempt to foster is an “Everton DNA” that goes right through all age-group sides. Coaches seek to instil work ethic, a fast-tempo style and attacking principles on their young charges from an early age. The fact that most of the coaching team are former players helps in this regard.
It is no different at under-16 level. On Saturday, Tim Cahill joined another former player, Phil Jevons, in the dugout. Cahill will move between academy sides to gain experience as he does his UEFA coaching badges but, for now, his work will take place with Jevons’ team. The Australian’s presence is a further boost to a set-up that necessitates an understanding of identity — and what it means to play for Everton.
“Staff are definitely our driving force,” academy manager Joel Waldron told The Athletic last year. “It is good to have coaches who have played for Everton’s first team or been through the academy. What we do have are a set of values as a club. We think we’ve got staff that embody and buy into what we’re about.”
Waldron and his team are constantly looking outside of the box to add to the “Everton DNA”. Over the past three seasons, academy staff have held meetings with UK Boxing, British Cycling and numerous representatives from European clubs as they seek to hone their programme.
A source told The Athletic that there is also confidence at Finch Farm that the future of the club is in “very safe hands” under director of football Brands. Whereas before lines of communication were muddled, now Brands functions as the ideal middle-man. He has already had a big impact on academy matters at Finch Farm, his attention to detail and hands-on approach creating a more efficient interface between staff and the club’s hierarchy.
On a collective level, there has been a great deal to shout about at the academy in recent times. David Unsworth’s under-23 side have won the Premier League 2 title twice in the past three years and lifted the Premier League 2 Cup last season. The club’s under-18 teams also routinely challenge at the top of the Northern section of the Premier League.
With scholarship decisions to be made on under-16 players as early as November, Brands spent the majority of his time taking in the 1-1 draw between the lower age group on the parallel pitch. He was, however, in attendance at the side of the show pitch as Liverpool ran away with the under-18 match late on.
By then, a team overseen by Keith Southern — who was stepping in for Paul Tait due to personal issues — and comprised largely of first-year scholars, had hit the woodwork on three occasions only to completely lose their shape after falling behind.
Dobbin — someone Unsworth believes is “going to be a top player, there’s absolutely no doubt about that” — showed glimpses of his talent, while Onyango and centre-back Reece Welch will join the striker in the latest England under-17 squad for the international break. Goalscorer Onyango, a rangy central midfielder with an eye for goal, was the focus of much attention among the agents on Saturday.
That talented trio will all be afforded opportunities to push on this season yet, for all the potential, the result against Liverpool will have raised eyebrows at Finch Farm.
Rivals have caught up. And while there was once a clear and obvious pathway to the Everton first team, now players are being forced to go out on loan or move elsewhere to get their chance. Expensive imports make breaking through that little bit harder.
Davies, once seen as the future of the Everton midfield, has seen his route to the first team blocked by a trio of summer signings in Andre Gomes, Fabian Delph and Jean-Philippe Gbamin. Right-back Jonjoe Kenny, a prominent member of the Everton under-23 side that won the Premier League 2 title in 2016-17, is now on loan at Schalke after finding himself behind club captain Seamus Coleman in the pecking order at Goodison.
Others from that successful side have fared little better. Midfielder Kieran Dowell is in the midst of a stuttering loan spell at Derby County while Joe Williams and Antonee Robinson both left to join Wigan Athletic over the summer.
Regardless of results, it proves there is still work to be done to help academy starlets make that final jump to Premier League fame and fortune.
For now, the meticulous work at Finch Farm continues apace — that desire to produce top players as strong as ever — but one thing is for certain: all at Everton will want to forget the weekend in a hurry.
It was a list of names to make anyone sit up and take notice. Arsenal, Celtic, Leicester City, Leipzig and Newcastle.
Housed in the small temporary stand to the left of the Finch Farm dugout, club scouts congregated alongside leading youth football agents to examine the next generation of talent emerging from Everton and Liverpool.
While Marco Silva’s first team were preparing for their fifth league defeat in six matches in Lancashire — one that ultimately took them into the relegation zone heading into the international break — closer to home, another chastening chapter was also being written.
This humbling came in the mini Merseyside derby, the first instalment of a weekend to forget for Everton.
On the show pitch at Finch Farm, Everton’s under-18 side slumped to a 6-1 defeat to their local rivals. Everton actually led through a goal from highly-rated midfielder Tyler Onyango but chances went begging and the tide quickly turned. On the stroke of half-time, Liverpool scored twice in as many minutes and from there, they did not look back. By the final whistle, the score could have been anything.
Not so long ago, it was Everton’s under-18 side inflicting scorelines of this margin on Liverpool. In 2015, a side featuring Tom Davies raced to a 5-0 victory over their rivals on the very same pitch. Then, the balance of power in Merseyside football was firmly with the blue half of the city. Not now. The gap has closed substantially and England defender Trent Alexander-Arnold has come through the ranks at Anfield. Meanwhile Davies, a key performer in that 5-0 win in 2015, still finds himself on the fringes of Silva’s squad.
So what, if anything, has changed?
Liverpool, for their part, have substantially raised their game. One source told The Athletic that, until recently, there was a sense that the Anfield club would allow Everton more or less free rein on local talent and then buy whatever they needed at 16.
They have since shifted away from that policy and, under well-respected academy director Alex Inglethorpe, the focus in recent years has been on quality over quantity. Liverpool have cut academy numbers from 240 to 170 as part of the overhaul and are once again competing for top local talent alongside Everton and the two Manchester clubs. Alexander-Arnold’s rise is one that is said to be paying dividends during sales pitches to sought-after players.
Everton, by contrast, have had their own options limited by a two-year ban from signing academy players that links back to a breach of recruitment rules in the winter of 2018. A Premier League investigation found that Everton academy staff had offered final inducements to a player and his family if he signed with the club.
With competition for local players fiercer than ever, the ban has seen other clubs steal a march.
Liverpool are particularly active when it comes to recruiting youth players from other professional clubs, with Rhian Brewster and Elijah Dixon-Bonner — two of their brightest hopes — brought in from Chelsea and Arsenal respectively to plug gaps in their age-group sides.
Everton, as it stands, are unable to respond in kind. At the moment, much of the focus in the scouting department centres on finding players from within their usual north-west catchment area. Stoke-born Lewis Dobbin, a 16-year-old England youth international who played in the under-18 game against Liverpool, is just one talent that has been unearthed from this process.
Instead of targeting specific schools known for producing good footballers, often Everton scouts look at grassroots leagues in north Liverpool. There is confidence within the academy that the under-18 and under-16 sides are well-equipped. However, some believe signings will need to be made once the ban is lifted if Everton are to push forward again.
Like the first team, the under-18s and under-16s play a 4-2-3-1 formation — although this is about maximising the abilities of the players within those respective set-ups rather than a directive from Marcel Brands or Silva.
What those at the academy instead attempt to foster is an “Everton DNA” that goes right through all age-group sides. Coaches seek to instil work ethic, a fast-tempo style and attacking principles on their young charges from an early age. The fact that most of the coaching team are former players helps in this regard.
It is no different at under-16 level. On Saturday, Tim Cahill joined another former player, Phil Jevons, in the dugout. Cahill will move between academy sides to gain experience as he does his UEFA coaching badges but, for now, his work will take place with Jevons’ team. The Australian’s presence is a further boost to a set-up that necessitates an understanding of identity — and what it means to play for Everton.
“Staff are definitely our driving force,” academy manager Joel Waldron told The Athletic last year. “It is good to have coaches who have played for Everton’s first team or been through the academy. What we do have are a set of values as a club. We think we’ve got staff that embody and buy into what we’re about.”
Waldron and his team are constantly looking outside of the box to add to the “Everton DNA”. Over the past three seasons, academy staff have held meetings with UK Boxing, British Cycling and numerous representatives from European clubs as they seek to hone their programme.
A source told The Athletic that there is also confidence at Finch Farm that the future of the club is in “very safe hands” under director of football Brands. Whereas before lines of communication were muddled, now Brands functions as the ideal middle-man. He has already had a big impact on academy matters at Finch Farm, his attention to detail and hands-on approach creating a more efficient interface between staff and the club’s hierarchy.
On a collective level, there has been a great deal to shout about at the academy in recent times. David Unsworth’s under-23 side have won the Premier League 2 title twice in the past three years and lifted the Premier League 2 Cup last season. The club’s under-18 teams also routinely challenge at the top of the Northern section of the Premier League.
With scholarship decisions to be made on under-16 players as early as November, Brands spent the majority of his time taking in the 1-1 draw between the lower age group on the parallel pitch. He was, however, in attendance at the side of the show pitch as Liverpool ran away with the under-18 match late on.
By then, a team overseen by Keith Southern — who was stepping in for Paul Tait due to personal issues — and comprised largely of first-year scholars, had hit the woodwork on three occasions only to completely lose their shape after falling behind.
Dobbin — someone Unsworth believes is “going to be a top player, there’s absolutely no doubt about that” — showed glimpses of his talent, while Onyango and centre-back Reece Welch will join the striker in the latest England under-17 squad for the international break. Goalscorer Onyango, a rangy central midfielder with an eye for goal, was the focus of much attention among the agents on Saturday.
That talented trio will all be afforded opportunities to push on this season yet, for all the potential, the result against Liverpool will have raised eyebrows at Finch Farm.
Rivals have caught up. And while there was once a clear and obvious pathway to the Everton first team, now players are being forced to go out on loan or move elsewhere to get their chance. Expensive imports make breaking through that little bit harder.
Davies, once seen as the future of the Everton midfield, has seen his route to the first team blocked by a trio of summer signings in Andre Gomes, Fabian Delph and Jean-Philippe Gbamin. Right-back Jonjoe Kenny, a prominent member of the Everton under-23 side that won the Premier League 2 title in 2016-17, is now on loan at Schalke after finding himself behind club captain Seamus Coleman in the pecking order at Goodison.
Others from that successful side have fared little better. Midfielder Kieran Dowell is in the midst of a stuttering loan spell at Derby County while Joe Williams and Antonee Robinson both left to join Wigan Athletic over the summer.
Regardless of results, it proves there is still work to be done to help academy starlets make that final jump to Premier League fame and fortune.
For now, the meticulous work at Finch Farm continues apace — that desire to produce top players as strong as ever — but one thing is for certain: all at Everton will want to forget the weekend in a hurry.
Rollo Tomassi
Player Valuation: £15m
zzr45
#MURDERINGSCUM
Looks like it was mainly pre-written with a few bits thrown in. Can hardly say it's an unfair piece.
zzr45
#MURDERINGSCUM
Interesting comparison to look at what the rs have in terms of staff - there's very few former players in their ranks, those that are tended to have gone to university etc and have worked elsewhere, interestingly not many of them work above an u12 level.
We on the other hand seem to be throwing rank amateurs into the deep end of talent development. Utter disgrace really.