Loads of talent in this country. When you see pictures of Kane and Vardy sat on a championship bench, Maddison in a Norwich shirt, Stones at Barnsley, Ramsay at Cardiff etc. it suggests that there’s plenty of talent in the lower leagues and academies waiting to be snapped up at the right time.
I’ve long thought there’s a potential alternative approach for Everton that would just involve scouting every blade of grass in the UK and competing for the best players who might be more inclined to play their football with us in their home country. We’ve had much better success with Stones DCL Pickford Branthwaite even going further back to Baines and Jags than we have with any wonder kids we’ve signed from abroad recently (Moise Kean being the latest who didn’t perform to what we hoped) .
Why weren’t we saying to a young Jude Bellingham come and play first team premier league football before Dortmund eventually did? Imagine if we’d taken advantage of Declan Rice’s situation not getting many minutes at West Ham before Moyes got there. There’ll be kids sitting on City and Chelsea benches right now, or playing in lower league teams who will be the next England players moving for huge fees and we could be offering them decent transfer fees, wages, and playing time to play for us. I’d rather our scouts were looking for them than watching a match in Spain France or Brazil with a load of scouts from Real Madrid Barcelona City PSG and Bayern in attendance.