2020/21 Thierry Small

[MikeH72]

Yeh but he seemingly thinks in 3 years, when he's 19, he will be starting for Arsenal or Bayern Munich or whoever else he's moving to but not here.

Does he think that though? Or does he just think he’ll improve playing under their coaches sufficiently enough to become a top tier footballer?

 

[orly]

Ironically when we are talking about Small the Hippo is the problem.

Sack Unnnnsy for the love of God. He's awful at his job.

 

[Billy Dean]

I'm sure the progression of Mount and James had nothing to do with a transfer embargo that meant Lampard blooded a large number of young players.

They were very lucky in that respect to get a chance in the Chelsea first team. But they did have 2 good loans each before that.

 

[MikeH72]

Ironically when we are talking about Small the Hippo is the problem.

Sack Unnnnsy for the love of God. He's awful at his job.

This.

 

[orly]

This.

How long has he had now? And even more bonkers that he's been promoted, rather than fired, for poor performance.

I'll never understand the strategy of Moshiri's first five years here. It's been a disaster.

 

[Nymzee]

Does he think that though? Or does he just think he’ll improve playing under their coaches sufficiently enough to become a top tier footballer?

Well all we've heard so far is he wants to leave for first team football.

 

[mahermi1]

In all fairness, Brands arrived in 2018, so any changes he's made to the academy, if any, would need a few more years to bear fruit most likely.

hardly any, if any new coaches have arrived though, except for old player gravy train.

 

[mightymoyes]

Spot on here!

Also when he signs elsewere, instead of vilifying a 16 year old kid as being a greedy footballer (we will be offering him the same amount as everyone else), i hope there is an investigation by the people higher up at the club why one of our most talented young players in almost a decade had to down tools and felt like he couldnt stay here to progress his career! Why does he feel elsewere is the right move for him?
These questions need to be asked.
Does he not feel hes getting good enough coaching?
Does he feel there is no path to the first team?
Does he look at the likes of Lewis Gibson & feel like we should be doing better with someone who at 17 was one of the best centre halves for his age in the country? And has now come off the back of to many pointless under 23 seasons and a disasterous loan at Reading

no he wasnt and how can the club be blamed if gibson isnt up to the job at reading?

 

[MikeH72]

How long has he had now? And even more bonkers that he's been promoted, rather than fired, for poor performance.

I'll never understand the strategy of Moshiri's first five years here. It's been a disaster.

Moshiri doesn’t have a clue about football. That’s not the issue though, the issue is he’s entrusted completely incompetent people with football related matters. Why Kenwright still has a say in anything I’ll never know, he’s the reason Ferguson and Unsworth are unsackable.

 

[catcherintherye]

I am talking 16-21.

Take Manchester United, they've now hired specific development coaches (Justin Cochrane being one) or Brighton who have Davie Weir as loans/pathway manager.

Brexit has ramped up the competition for domestic players, every club is throwing huge resources at trying to get the best players. Villa are sinking in millions getting an U18 dream team together.

Rightly or wrongly our reputation is poor in the upper age groups. We had a recruitment ban which hasn't helped but the likes of Small have every academy in the country after them offering not only money but mapped out plans with specific moves etc

Again it may be that we do have all those things in place but externally the reputation is always "they'll get your ready for EFL and have great attitudes but if you want to play PL go to X instead"

Yes very fair. I mean a few, somewhat contradictory thoughts on this.

1) We did previously have a loans manager (Joe Royle) and I'm not entirely convinced it helped things much. It might help the perception though, which in some ways is a good reason for doing it. I know we have brought in Leighton Baines too and there is perhaps a role for Seamus Coleman is/when he finishes up?

2) The 5 years of transition, and doing a pretty poor impersonation of Chelsea will have harmed us. Outside of Davies (who had really broken through right at the start of that process) it's hard to think of anyone from the academy who has come up. I appreciate DCL and Holgate have joined him. However it has been 5 years of short termism really, in terms of managers, recruitment and approach of the club, driven by an owner who wants success yesterday. I don't want to slaughter Benitez but he is a continuation of this. He's the guy who moved on Armstrong and Tony from Newcastle to play Joselu, and gutted a vibrant academy at Liverpool to lead to a situation where they went about 15 years waiting to bring another prospect through.

He is to some degree a continuation of what has gone before too. An approach where we have probably not focused enough on how to bring lads through from say 18-22 and while I'd love to be proven wrong, I don't think he is going to change an enormous amount.

3) Alongside the above problem, that had been compounded by an under 23's manager taking Everton from one of the youngest squads in PL2 to one of the oldest. I know that process has been slightly changed now, but a mixture of closing pathways at 1st team level by being lots of players and going through a list of quite short termist managers, allied to an under 23's which has become clogged with players hasn't helped really.

4) I think Everton need a real re-appraisal of what they are trying to do with the academy. The big threat is leakage of talent. Small may be one of the 1st for us, but we've seen recently Chelsea have lost another 3 or 4 over recent weeks (to go on top of the others who have left in the previous years). There seems to be a lot of talk about loaning lads out and selling the ones on who can't make it for profit. My issues with either is they don't seem realistic for where we are at. Because we are not an established top 6 team, championship clubs are not cuing up to take our players on loan.
I'd also add that the championship this summer has spent 5m so far. There was a 73m spend last summer. It's around 3m per club and likely to decrease on that this year. I'm really not sure there is a big enough market out there, for championship teams, to be spending anything other than nominal fees on players who can't get near the squad of a PL team who have generally finished 7-10th. And in the same breath, why are PL teams going to want to take players who can't get near to our team for their team, when they finish quite close to us in the league, and pay us a handy premium to do so?

It won't happen under this manager, but I would say Everton need to open more pathways, and talk a lot more about it. At times open pathways for some 1st team exposure to then get the players the 1st team loan experience as "cue jumpers" as it were. (So actually sort of what we have done with Gordon/Brainthwaite) whereby you give some exposure, which gives us some sort of USP over say a youngster from Chelsea/City etc who may have better pedigree but may not have the 1st team minutes. It may also require some patience to see that a player may only be ready at say 22 even though they make a debut at 18/19.

 

[MikeH72]

no he wasnt and how can the club be blamed if gibson isnt up to the job at reading?

Gibson hasn’t developed as a footballer from the day he signed for us at 16. Given he’s been in our academy that whole time, that actually is our fault. We can’t even produce a player that can hold their own in the Championship at 20/21.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

They were very lucky in that respect to get a chance in the Chelsea first team. But they did have 2 good loans each before that.

I just find it funny that Chelsea are held up as an example of what to do in terms of blooding young players when under Abramovich they have been the worst offenders at buying a [Poor language removed] load of young talent, farming that out on loan after loan and trying to flog them on again for a profit. Especially when you think they've lost the likes of Ake, Declan Rice, Lukaku, de Bruyne, Salah by "not offering them a route to the first team".

 

[vintage-toffees]

Is this kid worth the headlines he Is garnering

Aint seen enough of him to have a opinion

 

[catcherintherye]

How long has he had now? And even more bonkers that he's been promoted, rather than fired, for poor performance.

I'll never understand the strategy of Moshiri's first five years here. It's been a disaster.

It sounds ridiculous so have been loathed to say it, but I'm really not sure there is much of a strategy. Or at least, there's not much of a strategy beyond get a "high profile" manager and assume everything falls into place.

 

[catcherintherye]

I just find it funny that Chelsea are held up as an example of what to do in terms of blooding young players when under Abramovich they have been the worst offenders at buying a [Poor language removed] load of young talent, farming that out on loan after loan and trying to flog them on again for a profit. Especially when you think they've lost the likes of Ake, Declan Rice, Lukaku, de Bruyne, Salah by "not offering them a route to the first team".

This is a fair point. The only real integration into the Chelsea 1st team came when Lampard had a season in charge. They, City and Liverpool spend fortunes on young players, and people will look at the successes they have when they move the odd player on, but not see the whole picture of the high costs involved.

Chelsea and City have been incredibly inefficient at bringing through talent, and is partially why players are now leaving once they get to 16-18 there. United on the other hand, have far fewer "raw materials" in terms of talent, but bring a lot more through.