Everton Youth Teams Thread

And must be injured again. Seems to be permanently injured
I have high hopes that Beni will become another Peter Reid , and emerge as a decent player once he has a sustained injury free period, and would settle for him being half as good as Reid. Plus I must share some of the blame .... hasn’t played since I started sponsoring his thread :(
 

Hugely impressed by Adeniran – an exciting box to box player. Seemed very strong in possession and carried the ball forwards through centre of midfield.With him in mind I have been wondering for a while about Tom Davies and whether his best position may be as a defensive central midfielder. He has size and pace and can tackle strongly. He is a good short passer but there would be less onus on him to be creative higher up the pitch which he is being asked to do at present and I think that is a weakness in his game. Playing as a defensive central midfielder means less instances of being caught in possession as there can be more space and time on the ball in that role.On occasions I have seen him hit accurate long passes from deep positions out to runners in wide areas so from a deeper position he could get his head up and hit longer passes. Perhaps a future midfield of Davies in a defensive position and Adeniran playing the box to box role.
Our commentators made a comment that they’d hoped Adeniran would be further along by now, which is based on the potential he had when at Fulham. It’s a tough one, high expectations but he’s only 20 and few English 20 year olds play at PL/Championship level. It’s an interesting comparison you make with Davies. Adeniran was excellent last night, driving forward from midfield, but he’s been very much a Defensive Mid this season, better than Markelo , but I can’t recollect him scoring a goal or even threatening to score/ have a shot at goal. He’s certainly got a powerful build .
 
Our commentators made a comment that they’d hoped Adeniran would be further along by now, which is based on the potential he had when at Fulham. It’s a tough one, high expectations but he’s only 20 and few English 20 year olds play at PL/Championship level. It’s an interesting comparison you make with Davies. Adeniran was excellent last night, driving forward from midfield, but he’s been very much a Defensive Mid this season, better than Markelo , but I can’t recollect him scoring a goal or even threatening to score/ have a shot at goal. He’s certainly got a powerful build .

....scored a few unbelievable goals for Fulham but you’re right, he doesn’t get into goalscoring areas despite having great physicality and running power.
 

Our commentators made a comment that they’d hoped Adeniran would be further along by now, which is based on the potential he had when at Fulham. It’s a tough one, high expectations but he’s only 20 and few English 20 year olds play at PL/Championship level. It’s an interesting comparison you make with Davies. Adeniran was excellent last night, driving forward from midfield, but he’s been very much a Defensive Mid this season, better than Markelo , but I can’t recollect him scoring a goal or even threatening to score/ have a shot at goal. He’s certainly got a powerful build .

I suspect it’s because before he came to us he’d already made his pro debut for Fulham in the cup.
 
Unsworth seems to be developing another strong team. I have to say I am always a bit surprised when I see some of the criticism of him as an under 23 coach. We have lots of players who’ve passed through the reserves into the first team. Fair enough many of them may not have developed as we had have hoped but once they are training with the first team that’s very little to do with Unsworth.

The budget for his side is reasonable but by no means the biggest and what you would also say is that in terms of under 18’s while we are generally in the top 10 we are not at the absolute pinnacle of the league. He seems to take players from the 18’s and generally improve them. Broadhead is probably the latest one who has really come on leaps and bounds under him.

If I’m honest with the group, I think we’ve got a lot of decent players but probably nobody quite standing out yet, certainly not amongst the younger players who you would hang your hat on. Feeney, Broadhead, Bowler, Adenarin & Hornby all look impressive but they are 19-20 and I do think that window of opportunity will be closing on them quite quickly. I think all of them will have good careers out of the game, we should get a decent fee for all of tehm with a hefty sell on value but I am not sure they will be ready to play in the first team next summer which is kind of the acid test.

The lads below that probably have a bit more of a chance. I really like the look of Gordon, who as an under 18 is getting into the best reserve team in the league and regularly showing promise. Astley is much the same and Gibson being 2 years younger than Feeney stands him in good stead. They need to keep kicking on, but there is a potential they could make the jump up if they keep improving over the next 18 months or so.

It will be fascinating to know Brands thoughts on it all though. Will he view it as necessary to start including some of these lads for Silva to prevent us having to spend money in the transfer window? At Holland they tend to have a broader longer term plan that involves that approach and maybe he thinks that can work for us? I don’t know, it will be interesting.

Of all the names mentioned while I can say I don’t believe any of the older age will make it and the younger age will need to keep developing I can’t say I’d be surprised if I saw any of them in the first team next season. It might sound a contradiction but young players tend to go in fits and starts, and have surges in development. Most of them are probably a big jump and a bit of good fortune away. None of them would let Everton down, I’m just not quite sure they will be good enough to beat the door down.
 
1 more win gets us to 40 points, if I were Silva I'd bring in a few of the young lads especially strikers Simms, Broadhead and Sambou just for a look at what we have when it dosent really matter in the league, you'd never know our striker problem could be solved without costing tens of millions.

our aim isn't to avoid relegation, for god's sake, it's for top 7. you think the 6 or 7 teams below us averaging less than a point a game are suddenly all going to start averaging two points a game? We're clearly safe, but still have an outside change for europe, so rightly he's not going to start chucking lads from the u18's (jumping ahead of those who have been playing u23's for a couple of years now) into the first team.
 

Top