It's all a little bit academic this argument because he's on loan whether we like it or not! Just a couple of observations. Dowell is a no 10, if he's inconsistent it's because he often plays out on the right. When he's more central he's more involved, out on the right he can be isolated as can any wide player. But if we can't play a young player because their inconsistent then what have we been doing playing DCL or Lookman? DCL has hardly been the model of consistency in his performances. Some of that has to be down to the fact that he's not really being played in his best position. It's the same with Dowell. So for me this inconsistency argument is overstated particularly when Koeman splashed out £28 million on Bolassie who is the definition of inconsistent!
Koeman's handling of Dowell has been poor in my opinion. The lad played against Norwich, did well, Unsworth thought he was ready. What happened then - absolutely nothing. He was given no time off the bench for the first team, no involvement in the league cup. He wasn't sent on loan, he got disillusioned with Koeman. He spent some of last season working with Unsworth on closing down, working harder off the ball trying to improve on those things. He played in the U20 World Cup and won it with England. Had a great impact in pre-season, then binned off again by Koeman. He's the most talented youngster that we have and he hasn't had a SINGLE MINUTE of first team football from Koeman. I'd have a lot more faith that Koeman was serious about developing the lad if he'd have sent him on loan last season, given him some encouragement that if he did well he'd be involved in the first team squad this season. However that's not happened and Koeman's signed a washed up 31 year old and is about to splash 50 million on a set piece specialist to go along with a squad full of midfield dullards.
If Koeman had been willing to give him some game time then he would undoubtedly be better off staying at Everton. As it is there was no chance of that so I think the lad, who was desperate to go on loan, is better off at Forest but frankly I doubt that Koeman is doing it to develop him to play for Everton.