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Everton Youth Teams Thread

EFC_FRANCIS said:
I'm not saying he wasn't considered a premier league player because by 19-20 that ship had sailed on him moving to another premier league club. But the best of the rest were the ones that snapped him up so its not like he was a million miles away and moved to Carlisle or someone. He joined the 21st best team in the country when by your metric if he joined the 20th he would've been seen as a premier league player?

I'm not exactly sure what your point is with Gordon, that we should be sending our youngsters out to struggling teams just because that's football? Moise Kean was godawful for us and yet good for PSG and Juventus. Do we take from that, that he's a dreadful or excellent player based off what we've seen or perhaps apply a bit of context that players performance and form will inevitably vary based on the background and environment they are in. Barkley had 2 bad loans, came back and he was one of our most important first teamers.

Gordon might not be good enough long term or even now, but we're also fielding a squad with Iwobi, Bernard, King, Sigurdsson, Broadhead and Gomes in it so that point just flies out the window really
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No that's not my point at all. On any count. What I think is all there, there's no point in me rehashing it. Just read it again and you might understand.
 

Lanolin said:
I wasn't talking just about loans. I'm saying Dowell left here at about 22 as a well known player with loads of under 21 caps and championship games under his belt. He was available for a pittance, and yet not one PL club made a move for him. That isn't indisputable proof that he wasn't considered a PL player, but it's pretty strong circumstantial evidence.

The Gordon situation at Preston is just football isn't it. Or life even. The circumstances aren't always perfect, you just have to do your best and get through it. There's always something that people moan about when our players are on loan, it's never just that they aren't as good as people thought they were.
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I have to say the loan things frustrates me a bit. Not that a good loan isn't beneficial because of course it is, but it's often thrown around as this one size fits all answer to the problems. It's a way of avoiding a number of hard truths. It's easy to have a bogeyman (which is Unsworth) and a mechanism (lack of loans) and it explains away much more challenging/complex.

A lot of the big advocates for loans, and a lack of loans causing the problems go sheepishly quiet when you point out that Connolly, Dowell, Kenny, Walsh etc all had loans away and in honesty it didn't magically kick any of them on. There's always then a defence of "the wrong type of loan" which I always thinks begs the question well how do you know beforehand what the "right" loan is, and if it's only loans to certain other teams, what are the chances of getting all of our young players in there when presumably every other club will be doing the same? There's never any acknowledgement that the loan market isn't a singular solution, but if dependant on finding the right loan, and that maybe the reason we haven't loaned others out, is because the "right" loan didn't come up.

The blunt reality is, Manchetser City and Chelsea have the best teenagers in the country by far. The world and his dog know that. City bully Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United for their best players. Forget signing unnattached players, they will poach from those 3 clubs in a way that none of the others could previously. United get around this by essentially not competing like for like, they don't worry about results and they have a big focus on pathways and making players who are able to push through. They do odd things like not even given the team a formation when they play- as they want the team to work it out themselves. And it works for them. City will defeat them at under 16/18's but United will likely get a player through.

Liverpool go very very heavily from under 18's upwards. Not just the fees, but big sell ons, big agents fees, huge wages, huge sign on fees etc to young players. It's not to say they don't worry up to 16, but they really kick in. Everton's philosophy was always very heavy in working class areas and we wanted the best players up to the age of 11 under Wauldron (I don't know if thats still the view now). But there is leekage, and while we are good up to 15/16 Liverpool spend big to catch us, City are already well ahead. Both have been making big offers to a 15 year old we have currently, who is considered the best in his age group.

I am going round the houses a bit, but there is a reason beyond conspiracy why Liverpool, and to a degree City and Chelsea players get loaned to teams more easily, and it's mainly because they have a much higher reputation than most of our players. Since the Davies year group, our ages were not considered particularly special. I include Gordons age, and Dobbins age in that, who could both be first teamers (our 16's/15's are better rated).

We've done well with Gordon, and actually what we've done with him and Brainthwaite makes a lot of sense. We give them some exposure so they can jump the loan cue. But championship teams are not chomping at the bit to loan our younger players, Unsworth or otherwise.

Now there's a legitimate argument to say that the policy may not work (ie best kids at 11). It could be it's not consistent and people pull in different directions. You could even say we need to compete harder at 16+. All are fair. The loan thing always seems simplistic to me though.
 
catcherintherye said:
I have to say the loan things frustrates me a bit. Not that a good loan isn't beneficial because of course it is, but it's often thrown around as this one size fits all answer to the problems. It's a way of avoiding a number of hard truths. It's easy to have a bogeyman (which is Unsworth) and a mechanism (lack of loans) and it explains away much more challenging/complex.

A lot of the big advocates for loans, and a lack of loans causing the problems go sheepishly quiet when you point out that Connolly, Dowell, Kenny, Walsh etc all had loans away and in honesty it didn't magically kick any of them on. There's always then a defence of "the wrong type of loan" which I always thinks begs the question well how do you know beforehand what the "right" loan is, and if it's only loans to certain other teams, what are the chances of getting all of our young players in there when presumably every other club will be doing the same? There's never any acknowledgement that the loan market isn't a singular solution, but if dependant on finding the right loan, and that maybe the reason we haven't loaned others out, is because the "right" loan didn't come up.

The blunt reality is, Manchetser City and Chelsea have the best teenagers in the country by far. The world and his dog know that. City bully Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United for their best players. Forget signing unnattached players, they will poach from those 3 clubs in a way that none of the others could previously. United get around this by essentially not competing like for like, they don't worry about results and they have a big focus on pathways and making players who are able to push through. They do odd things like not even given the team a formation when they play- as they want the team to work it out themselves. And it works for them. City will defeat them at under 16/18's but United will likely get a player through.

Liverpool go very very heavily from under 18's upwards. Not just the fees, but big sell ons, big agents fees, huge wages, huge sign on fees etc to young players. It's not to say they don't worry up to 16, but they really kick in. Everton's philosophy was always very heavy in working class areas and we wanted the best players up to the age of 11 under Wauldron (I don't know if thats still the view now). But there is leekage, and while we are good up to 15/16 Liverpool spend big to catch us, City are already well ahead. Both have been making big offers to a 15 year old we have currently, who is considered the best in his age group.

I am going round the houses a bit, but there is a reason beyond conspiracy why Liverpool, and to a degree City and Chelsea players get loaned to teams more easily, and it's mainly because they have a much higher reputation than most of our players. Since the Davies year group, our ages were not considered particularly special. I include Gordons age, and Dobbins age in that, who could both be first teamers (our 16's/15's are better rated).

We've done well with Gordon, and actually what we've done with him and Brainthwaite makes a lot of sense. We give them some exposure so they can jump the loan cue. But championship teams are not chomping at the bit to loan our younger players, Unsworth or otherwise.

Now there's a legitimate argument to say that the policy may not work (ie best kids at 11). It could be it's not consistent and people pull in different directions. You could even say we need to compete harder at 16+. All are fair. The loan thing always seems simplistic to me though.
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Yes, there's a lot of sense in there.

I think people always bend the facts to suit their existing view of the situation when it comes to this. People decide that a player is next off the production line, and they stick to that view regardless. If the player gets loaned out and bombs it was the wrong loan, if they come into the side and struggle it was unfair to throw them in, if they stay but don't get many chances it's because the manager has something against them, or if in doubt just blame Unsworth, it doesn't matter why. It's hilarious seeing people making out like it was some weird quirk of fate that meant a player ended up playing their entire career in league one, rather than just accepting that they may have been wrong about the lad they thought looked great playing against other kids at 17.
 
Lanolin said:
Yes, there's a lot of sense in there.

I think people always bend the facts to suit their existing view of the situation when it comes to this. People decide that a player is next off the production line, and they stick to that view regardless. If the player gets loaned out and bombs it was the wrong loan, if they come into the side and struggle it was unfair to throw them in, if they stay but don't get many chances it's because the manager has something against them, or if in doubt just blame Unsworth, it doesn't matter why. It's hilarious seeing people making out like it was some weird quirk of fate that meant a player ended up playing their entire career in league one, rather than just accepting that they may have been wrong about the lad they thought looked great playing against other kids at 17.
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Yes. I went round the houses a bit, but basically 90% of young players will not make a career in the game for more than 2-3 years. Thats at almost every club. It's why in some ways, having a year group with 1 good player like Gordon, who the focus is on, is better than having one with 5 or 6, as they can all end up getting lost.

I was very impressed when Gordon came in, but people do get worked out quickly. When you start, nobody has any real video analysis of you, any expeirence of marking you, any scout notes etc. After about 20-50 games or so that is built up and you see a lot of players start to stall and then worse lose all confidence. Suddenly everything you were doing that went well no longer does. It's not an awful hurdle to fall down at but it is a common one. That feels where Gordon is at to me. I thought he was very good initially, but people are far more aware of him now. Any complacency will have gone.

Davies had similar too, and is now probably only potentially emerging at the other side. Arnold at Liverpool is suffering this too. His took longer to see, as I think Van Dijk and others carried him through his weaknesses so they were masked, but you can see it. I'd expect Arnold to come through that but not everyone does. You can end up losing confidence to such a degree you don't find it back.

He had one MOTM Gordon, but for the rest he's been underwhelming. You never know though, it might still be the making of him. It's strange whats happened, but he has hardly beat the door down and say "pick me" on his loan spell.
 
catcherintherye said:
Yes. I went round the houses a bit, but basically 90% of young players will not make a career in the game for more than 2-3 years. Thats at almost every club. It's why in some ways, having a year group with 1 good player like Gordon, who the focus is on, is better than having one with 5 or 6, as they can all end up getting lost.

I was very impressed when Gordon came in, but people do get worked out quickly. When you start, nobody has any real video analysis of you, any expeirence of marking you, any scout notes etc. After about 20-50 games or so that is built up and you see a lot of players start to stall and then worse lose all confidence. Suddenly everything you were doing that went well no longer does. It's not an awful hurdle to fall down at but it is a common one. That feels where Gordon is at to me. I thought he was very good initially, but people are far more aware of him now. Any complacency will have gone.

Davies had similar too, and is now probably only potentially emerging at the other side. Arnold at Liverpool is suffering this too. His took longer to see, as I think Van Dijk and others carried him through his weaknesses so they were masked, but you can see it. I'd expect Arnold to come through that but not everyone does. You can end up losing confidence to such a degree you don't find it back.

He had one MOTM Gordon, but for the rest he's been underwhelming. You never know though, it might still be the making of him. It's strange whats happened, but he has hardly beat the door down and say "pick me" on his loan spell.
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Yeah, all good points again.

Gordon has plenty of time to come good (as does Dowell, going back to him) but ultimately if he wants to make it at the top level, he will need to produce the goods. Hints of promise are great when you're 17/18, but when you get to 20/21 you need to actually show you're capable of translating that into performances. As I said to someone earlier, the circumstances will never be perfect. There will always be a manager under pressure, or another player who the team is set up to get the best out of, or results will be really important, or the team around you will be poor. They're just excuses, not in a harsh way, just a realistic one. If you need the perfect scenario in order to do well then you're not cut out for top level sport, it's a cut throat business, there's no point pretending it's not.
 
catcherintherye said:
Yes. I went round the houses a bit, but basically 90% of young players will not make a career in the game for more than 2-3 years. Thats at almost every club. It's why in some ways, having a year group with 1 good player like Gordon, who the focus is on, is better than having one with 5 or 6, as they can all end up getting lost.

I was very impressed when Gordon came in, but people do get worked out quickly. When you start, nobody has any real video analysis of you, any expeirence of marking you, any scout notes etc. After about 20-50 games or so that is built up and you see a lot of players start to stall and then worse lose all confidence. Suddenly everything you were doing that went well no longer does. It's not an awful hurdle to fall down at but it is a common one. That feels where Gordon is at to me. I thought he was very good initially, but people are far more aware of him now. Any complacency will have gone.

Davies had similar too, and is now probably only potentially emerging at the other side. Arnold at Liverpool is suffering this too. His took longer to see, as I think Van Dijk and others carried him through his weaknesses so they were masked, but you can see it. I'd expect Arnold to come through that but not everyone does. You can end up losing confidence to such a degree you don't find it back.

He had one MOTM Gordon, but for the rest he's been underwhelming. You never know though, it might still be the making of him. It's strange whats happened, but he has hardly beat the door down and say "pick me" on his loan spell.
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Great points here.

I think there’s a greater visibility when it comes to youth players in general, now. There are very few “surprises”; I remember being a kid during the era of Cadamarteri, Ball, Branch etc and it was always exciting to hear the whispers of the next big thing - Even the ludicrous shouts that Cadamarteri was better than Owen. Now everyone has relatively easy access to youth team games and can make their own mind up to a certain degree without the rumour mill building these kids up beforehand.

Of course, to your point, we all hope for an “Osman” or two where the players may not look the best but a loan does them good and they come back to do a job as a useful squad player if not better, but the reality it that these loans are more often than not a shop window to help us make some money to cover the cost of their development.

It’s no surprise that our one “next big thing” of modern times is rumoured to be off to one of the Big Boys before he’s even had chance to get in our side.
 

Brett Angell Delight said:
Great points here.

I think there’s a greater visibility when it comes to youth players in general, now. There are very few “surprises”; I remember being a kid during the era of Cadamarteri, Ball, Branch etc and it was always exciting to hear the whispers of the next big thing - Even the ludicrous shouts that Cadamarteri was better than Owen. Now everyone has relatively easy access to youth team games and can make their own mind up to a certain degree without the rumour mill building these kids up beforehand.

Of course, to your point, we all hope for an “Osman” or two where the players may not look the best but a loan does them good and they come back to do a job as a useful squad player if not better, but the reality it that these loans are more often than not a shop window to help us make some money to cover the cost of their development.

It’s no surprise that our one “next big thing” of modern times is rumoured to be off to one of the Big Boys before he’s even had chance to get in our side.
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...living around the corner from Bellefield there was real access to Lancashire League games every Saturday morning, I was a regular there for many years so got to know the set-up very well. It was great not only seeing those youngsters coming through, but the likes of Giggs and Fowler in the opposition & players like Bracewell & Van den Hauwe coming back from injury.

No doubting the best. 5 mins of seeing one youngster for the first time prompted me to ask ‘who is that’ to one of the coaches, ‘his name is Rooney & he’s only 15’. Weirdly, he wasn’t playing particularly well but everything just looked right. Wow.
 
Eggs said:
...living around the corner from Bellefield there was real access to Lancashire League games every Saturday morning, I was a regular there for many years so got to know the set-up very well. It was great not only seeing those youngsters coming through, but the likes of Giggs and Fowler in the opposition & players like Bracewell & Van den Hauwe coming back from injury.

No doubting the best. 5 mins of seeing one youngster for the first time prompted me to ask ‘who is that’ to one of the coaches, ‘his name is Rooney & he’s only 15’. Wow.
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Must have been ace to see some of those talents coming through. Funny, I remember not really believing the hype about Rooney because of the number of false dawns we’d had in the recent past with young forwards!
 
Brett Angell Delight said:
Must have been ace to see some of those talents coming through. Funny, I remember not really believing the hype about Rooney because of the number of false dawns we’d had in the recent past with young forwards!
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....he had ability, attitude & physicality in spades. I went home & emailed my mate in Australia, he still has that message today. I went to the pub & told my mates. I drove along Storrington Ave a month or so later with the wife & kids in the car & he was walking towards his home, I said that unrecognisable kid will be a household name in 12 months, it didn’t take him that long.

Osman was a little maestro, I loved watching him & he was the other I spoke about in the pub. My fear was always his slight build, but he had terrific feet and balance on both sides. Defenders couldn’t get near him. There was a Derby at Goodison where Gerrard was desperately trying to nail him, but he was like a bull fighter with a cape and nobody could lay a glove on him.
 
blueloon said:
It’s been ages though since he last played, the RS Derby where he was sent off and clearly not available for the Wigan game either so it seems to have taken some time to get his op. He has a raw, competitiveness about him that’s different from the likes of Cannon and Dobbin , wishing him well for a speedy recovery.
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I think Dobbin, Cannon, Kouyate could be a very exciting front line in the u23s next season. Hopefully Dobbin and Kouyate recover well from their injuries and if just one of them is good enough it could save us a fortune in the transfer market.
 

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