Badge1878
Player Valuation: £8m
Whether it’s wasted youth or tough and practical decisions made by the coaching staff, I’m not so sure. Without doubt we build up the attributes of our youth programme and I understand the frustration of how we view its success or otherwise if the criteria is based on making 50+ First Team appearances in our first team.
What goes unnoticed at times is the tough decisions made by the coaches of the talented youngsters of whom the decision is to let go - talented as hell and destined to make it as professional footballers - but not at Everton. Whether it’s Ledson, Walsh, Duffis, Griffiths, Henen, Hope, Long, Forshaw, Duffy, Bowler, Wallace etc......all with potential, but ultimately not considered good enough. In the vast majority of cases the management team get it right as to whether the potential is sufficient to offer a contract that’ll see the player genuinely offer an option in our first team. I take the obvious exception of Lundstrum ......he’s had a stellar season but his development has come through a long journey via Doncaster, Yeovil and Blackpool. When he was released it was five or six years ago and he hadn’t shown enough at that stage to suggest he’d do what he has this year.
I may be bucking the trend here, but I think the coaches have come a long way in making the wrong call.....perhaps fifteen years ago it was wrong to let Baines and Jagielka leave but when it comes to those players who made it to our Everton u23s ...it’s hard to say they have made the wrong decisions as to their future development. Where I think we have got it wrong is the speculative foreign purchases with a transfer fee and contract to match.....Taranshji, Mathias, Rodriguez etc. The youth domestic transfer ban hurts us, don’t forget that...for every Calvert Lewis or Coleman we have another twenty Garbutts, Junior’s and Sambou’s...it’s an incredibly tough area to claim any success in, but for me the calls on who are released and when can be as critical as those as who we decide to keep on....such as Coleman and DCL.
What goes unnoticed at times is the tough decisions made by the coaches of the talented youngsters of whom the decision is to let go - talented as hell and destined to make it as professional footballers - but not at Everton. Whether it’s Ledson, Walsh, Duffis, Griffiths, Henen, Hope, Long, Forshaw, Duffy, Bowler, Wallace etc......all with potential, but ultimately not considered good enough. In the vast majority of cases the management team get it right as to whether the potential is sufficient to offer a contract that’ll see the player genuinely offer an option in our first team. I take the obvious exception of Lundstrum ......he’s had a stellar season but his development has come through a long journey via Doncaster, Yeovil and Blackpool. When he was released it was five or six years ago and he hadn’t shown enough at that stage to suggest he’d do what he has this year.
I may be bucking the trend here, but I think the coaches have come a long way in making the wrong call.....perhaps fifteen years ago it was wrong to let Baines and Jagielka leave but when it comes to those players who made it to our Everton u23s ...it’s hard to say they have made the wrong decisions as to their future development. Where I think we have got it wrong is the speculative foreign purchases with a transfer fee and contract to match.....Taranshji, Mathias, Rodriguez etc. The youth domestic transfer ban hurts us, don’t forget that...for every Calvert Lewis or Coleman we have another twenty Garbutts, Junior’s and Sambou’s...it’s an incredibly tough area to claim any success in, but for me the calls on who are released and when can be as critical as those as who we decide to keep on....such as Coleman and DCL.
