Everton's Age Profile

[Get in]

Its well known that we've had to rely on a crop of younger players coming through this season, as well as a group of players past their best. I've pulled some numbers together to see how this compares to other teams.

I tallied the total number of minutes played for each player in each age group at the club, and then compared it to the ‘top six’ teams. The data is from league games this season.

Some points of interest:

• Everton’s age groups are directly inverse to other teams. Most minutes are played by young players and old players, with very few in their ‘peak’ years, in fitness terms (22-27).
  
  
• Man City's distribution is by far the most even across all the age brackets.
  
  
• Liverpool are heavily reliant on players in the 25-27 bracket.
  
  
• Chelsea's follow the closest resemblance to a normal distribution, if 25-27 is considered 'peak' performance.
  
  
• Spurs have very few players over 30
  

We clearly have a different set up to all the top sides this season. Is this more of a problem or an opportunity?

 

[Nymzee]

Zat approved thread.

 

[ijjysmith]

Looks to me like every team is doing it differently to each other.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Its well known that we've had to rely on a crop of younger players coming through this season, as well as a group of players past their best. I've pulled some numbers together to see how this compares to other teams.

I tallied the total number of minutes played for each player in each age group at the club, and then compared it to the ‘top six’ teams. The data is from league games this season.

Some points of interest:

• Everton’s age groups are directly inverse to other teams. Most minutes are played by young players and old players, with very few in their ‘peak’ years, in fitness terms (22-27).
  
  
• Man City's distribution is by far the most even across all the age brackets.
  
  
• Liverpool are heavily reliant on players in the 25-27 bracket.
  
  
• Chelsea's follow the closest resemblance to a normal distribution, if 25-27 is considered 'peak' performance.
  
  
• Spurs have very few players over 30View attachment 42987

View attachment 42988


We clearly have a different set up to all the top sides this season. Is this more of a problem or an opportunity?

A problem, and has been for a while. Moyes’ team of 07-10 was probably the best balanced squad. Arteta Pienaar Cahill Yakubu Jags Baines Lescott Osman Howard Johnson Yobo Neville Hibbert all in their peaks at exactly the same time. It was no coincidence then that we qualified successively for Europe through consistent league finishes, balanced these with our best runs in the league cup and uefa cup, and then of course made the cup final. We had old pros like Stubbs Carsley etc. and young guns like Rodwell Gosling Vaughan Anichebe able to step in when required.

Martinez came along with a rebuilding job to do and whilst he brought in good young players (Lukaku and Del as well as bringing through Stones and Barkley) he alienated the ‘prime’ players of the squad and bought badly around that. Fellaini sold, Naismith sold, Jelavic sold, Gibson sidelined, Oviedo sidelined, Mirallas used sparingly. The prime players of Moyes’ last squad were replaced by the likes of Alacaraz, Etoo, Kone, Barry Atsu Besic Robles whilst Howard Distin Jags Baines were retained longer than they should have been in the first team. The make up of the first team was too young or too old with his prime buys (McCarthy Cleverley Niasse and Lennon) not performing or not being played enough.

Koeman recognised this and tried to buy in that age gap. Bolasie Gueye Klaasen Schneiderlin Siggurdson Keane were all bought for the first team. The issue is that most became either injured or out of form.

Allardyce has now picked up a team of kids and pensioners. This is not conducive to much success so the challenge remains the same it was when Moyes left. Rebalance the squad age wise so we have a team of players at their peak and maybe we will get back to where we want to be.

 

[hallamblue]

Because we are a mid-ranking team, we either get players with potential, players who've proved they aren't top top class, or players who used to be top top class and are now a bit past it.

If we are to punch above our weight we need to identify and recruit young players, and then try and persuade them we are growing as a club, a bit like Spurs have been doing for the last couple of years.

 

[PeregrineT]

I suppose the one striking thing you can take out of it is that all of the top teams have around half of their minutes played by those 22-27, and we have about 10%.

 

[Zatara]

@Get in
@Saint Domingo

Like @hallamblue said, if you aren't throwing hundreds of millions at players then you need to sign young players, develop them and nurture the group into a growing and evolving squad.

Right now, you can see the disparity in the age brackets...logically you would expect a pure juggernaut to have most of the starting 11 between the ages of 26-29. We either have u21 or 30+ players (mainly).

To put this into more perspective;
Pickford
Kenny
Holgate
keane
Left back
Bainingime
Davies
Vlasic
Lookman
Dowell
DCL

If we played with the above 11 players most games for the next 8 seasons, you would expect them to improve over time. They would only then be in or around their peak.

With rumours like Hirving Lozano etc if these come to fruition it must be seen as a major benefit...we should be constantly aiming to improve our squad around the above age group and we should see huge rewards in the coming years.

 

[SerenityNigh]

Its well known that we've had to rely on a crop of younger players coming through this season, as well as a group of players past their best. I've pulled some numbers together to see how this compares to other teams.

I tallied the total number of minutes played for each player in each age group at the club, and then compared it to the ‘top six’ teams. The data is from league games this season.

Some points of interest:

• Everton’s age groups are directly inverse to other teams. Most minutes are played by young players and old players, with very few in their ‘peak’ years, in fitness terms (22-27).
  
  
• Man City's distribution is by far the most even across all the age brackets.
  
  
• Liverpool are heavily reliant on players in the 25-27 bracket.
  
  
• Chelsea's follow the closest resemblance to a normal distribution, if 25-27 is considered 'peak' performance.
  
  
• Spurs have very few players over 30View attachment 42987

View attachment 42988


We clearly have a different set up to all the top sides this season. Is this more of a problem or an opportunity?

Is this outfield only? Maybe GKs don't make much difference, but seems like that could skew numbers, and age on GKs seems to matter less.

 

[Saint Domingo]

@Get in
@Saint Domingo

Like @hallamblue said, if you aren't throwing hundreds of millions at players then you need to sign young players, develop them and nurture the group into a growing and evolving squad.

Right now, you can see the disparity in the age brackets...logically you would expect a pure juggernaut to have most of the starting 11 between the ages of 26-29. We either have u21 or 30+ players (mainly).

To put this into more perspective;
Pickford
Kenny
Holgate
keane
Left back
Bainingime
Davies
Vlasic
Lookman
Dowell
DCL

If we played with the above 11 players most games for the next 8 seasons, you would expect them to improve over time. They would only then be in or around their peak.

With rumours like Hirving Lozano etc if these come to fruition it must be seen as a major benefit...we should be constantly aiming to improve our squad around the above age group and we should see huge rewards in the coming years.

We absolutely need to be doing this too and this is what Everton have done well. Allardyce is lucky because if he’d gone into any other club outside the top 6 with 6 first team players missing he’d be in trouble. Here he’s had Holgate Kenny Davies and Calvert Lewin to come straight into the first team and Lookman an Vlasic to support.

It doesn’t get away from the fact though that we are having to turn to the kids because what should be our big gun players at their peak are either injured (Bolasie Coleman Barkley Funes Mori) or are not in form (Keane Klaasen Schneiderlin). In my opinion only when we have that balanced squad will we be able to compete like we have before across multiple comps. Players at their peak have the correct blend of power pace hunger and experience.

Where your strategy falls down is that whilst we wait for these kids to hit their peak the big clubs just wait for us to finish their development and take them. Holgate will be on the radar of every top club if he keeps up this form: young English centreback good on the ball fast and versatile across the back line? Gold dust.

Then we have to start all over again.

As a team we should have the captain of ROI as our RB, England international Keane partnering Argentinian international Mori, LB is a problem area.

Senegalese international Gueye with French international Schneiderlin and Dutch international Klaassen. Iceland international Siggurdson, Rooney and Belgian international Mirallas upfront.

On paper that is what our first team of players should be. Highly experienced internationals in their primes.

Instead it’s nowhere near that due to injuries and poor form.

In my eyes that’s the challenge facing Allardyce, either rehabilitate the above players or move them out and get better ones in. Teams of old lags and young players (no matter how good they might be) don’t often win many trophies without some big gun players to build around.

 

[Frang]

I only see it as a good thing aslong as the team is kept together from now , and only added too minimally, we should theoretically have a very very established premier league proven team in their absolute peak years in a couple of seasons

 

[aazak]

Its well known that we've had to rely on a crop of younger players coming through this season, as well as a group of players past their best. I've pulled some numbers together to see how this compares to other teams.

I tallied the total number of minutes played for each player in each age group at the club, and then compared it to the ‘top six’ teams. The data is from league games this season.

Some points of interest:

• Everton’s age groups are directly inverse to other teams. Most minutes are played by young players and old players, with very few in their ‘peak’ years, in fitness terms (22-27).
  
  
• Man City's distribution is by far the most even across all the age brackets.
  
  
• Liverpool are heavily reliant on players in the 25-27 bracket.
  
  
• Chelsea's follow the closest resemblance to a normal distribution, if 25-27 is considered 'peak' performance.
  
  
• Spurs have very few players over 30View attachment 42987

View attachment 42988


We clearly have a different set up to all the top sides this season. Is this more of a problem or an opportunity?

Love this sort of thing!

 

[leslad]

Enjoyed that as a bit of a stats geek, but viz. what @SerenityNigh said, for some extra info perhaps you could also split each team's age distribution by their normal onfield position. The reason I suggest this is because player performance in different positions is known to peak at different ages, e.g. goalkeepers and defenders might be expected to peak at later ages than other positions like wingers or forwards. E.g. Hugo Lloris is 30 and so fits outside Spurs' general trend, but for a goalkeeper that could be considered to be average/relatively young, and so really he would actually fit in with the rest of the profile.

Be interesting to see how these distributions may have changed over the past few seasons too, though that simply might be too much effort to trawl through!

Nice one

 

[toffeejack]

good stuff @Get in, just confirms my main issue with our squad in that is chocker full with youngsters and seniors. This is something i wanted us to rectify in the summer and was happy with siggurdsson's signing. We definitely need to get a centre back and striker in that key age bracket like the RS have done. That's how they're doing so well with a small squad which is fairly low on quality. The main problems which arises from youngsters and those who's legs have gone ... consistency. Our squad looks very good on paper, but on paper it's players like jags and baines whos best years are behind them.

 

[Kev50]

allardyce will be all over this like a cheap suit

 

[Get in]

Is this outfield only? Maybe GKs don't make much difference, but seems like that could skew numbers, and age on GKs seems to matter less.

Enjoyed that as a bit of a stats geek, but viz. what @SerenityNigh said, for some extra info perhaps you could also split each team's age distribution by their normal onfield position. The reason I suggest this is because player performance in different positions is known to peak at different ages, e.g. goalkeepers and defenders might be expected to peak at later ages than other positions like wingers or forwards. E.g. Hugo Lloris is 30 and so fits outside Spurs' general trend, but for a goalkeeper that could be considered to be average/relatively young, and so really he would actually fit in with the rest of the profile.

Be interesting to see how these distributions may have changed over the past few seasons too, though that simply might be too much effort to trawl through!

Nice one

Currently this is GK included. I could relatively easily break it down by position, and get a mean age for each team and plot that on a scatter maybe.

I'd like to compare to past seasons but as yet haven't found a reliable source that gives minutes played for each player. I've found apps but that doesn't give as clear a picture.