Everton Youth Teams Thread

Puff piece on Everton Academy from a recent school presentation (includes the Mr Vint mentioned above):

Cheers for that mate, a brief but interesting insight into the school side of the Academy. I saw something on local tv last week about a Celtic schoolboy saying how they got up at 6 travelled to training , went to school , trained again afterwards etc . Although they are rightly called children in the video, it's clear that by the time they get to us as Scholars they have had great exposure to training regimes and can hit the ground running as it were and some like Evans show their potential right from the start.
 
I do understand your point and I am not against recruiting the best talent globally. I just worry about the feasibility of it. What age group are we talking, as it remains very difficult to pull under 16's from abroad across without running the risk of huge fines. Likewise you can get some under 18's but invariably you have to pay (relatively) big fees and often huge wages and sign on fees. I do wonder what impact that has on other young players in the academy. You have a settled and successful group of lads up to 16 and then look to start bringing star names in once they are 18 who are paid more than the rest of the squad are put together.

You are right to talk about the different approach City and Chelsea have taken. However I see their attempts to recruit internationally as a sign of weakness not strength. For Chelsea, post Terry they have brought no local lad through their academy. I simply think recruiting lots of highly paid teenagers attempts to cover for a weakness in their system. Likewise with City the local talent has really dried up. it's a bit different for City as they are hovering up the best local talent but are really struggling to bring anyone through.

The obvious point it would seem to me is that the more time they allocate to recruiting international players the harder it becomes for local talent. The solution to their problem appears to be spending even more which then goes on highly paid talent.

Alternatively since moving to FF in particular we have shown a pretty decent conveyor belt. Likewise we have Connolly, Holland, Ledson, Yates, Davies, Kenny, Evans who are all regularly capped by England youth teams and lads like Walsh and Dowell who are very well thought of. All of them are within 30 minutes drive of our stadium. The questions I would ask are;
1) How much effort/money/time would it take to recruit a similar group of young players/internationals from abroad?
2) Could that money be more efficiently spent on local talent?

I think what I shows to me, is that there is more than enough talent within the local area for us, and our strength is tapping into that. That's not to say it shouldn't be counter balanced by bringing others in, but I do think you need to be careful. How would the above lads moral have been impacted if we'd have brought in a series of very highly paid foreign youngsters who are on a similar level to them?

The biggest worry I have for Everton currently is Manchester City. Their best player in their under 16's (who may leave) used to be with us. They've got another great prospect from Huyton in the same year group. We should not be losing out on those players and we do need to think of ways to try to combat City on that.

sadly, it's becoming the norm that footballers are chasing the money rather than the playing time. We have more financial money now, but you're still going to get players, with their parents' wishes to go and chase the money and in some cases you're left helpless. We experience the same at first team level i.e. arteta going to arsenal.

I think what city did with roberts was pretty absurd as well btw, when kids are that age, you still can't be certain how they'll develop. We've seen so many players before peak at 21/22 and so many start to develop in their mid to late 20's. £12m is virtually what we paid for a first teamer who's been playing in one of the top leagues and internationally. I doubt roberts' price would have been any higher 3 years later when it would have been much easier to assess his development. Not from a club like fulham in the championship, anyway.
 
I do understand your point and I am not against recruiting the best talent globally. I just worry about the feasibility of it. What age group are we talking, as it remains very difficult to pull under 16's from abroad across without running the risk of huge fines. Likewise you can get some under 18's but invariably you have to pay (relatively) big fees and often huge wages and sign on fees. I do wonder what impact that has on other young players in the academy. You have a settled and successful group of lads up to 16 and then look to start bringing star names in once they are 18 who are paid more than the rest of the squad are put together.

You are right to talk about the different approach City and Chelsea have taken. However I see their attempts to recruit internationally as a sign of weakness not strength. For Chelsea, post Terry they have brought no local lad through their academy. I simply think recruiting lots of highly paid teenagers attempts to cover for a weakness in their system. Likewise with City the local talent has really dried up. it's a bit different for City as they are hovering up the best local talent but are really struggling to bring anyone through.

The obvious point it would seem to me is that the more time they allocate to recruiting international players the harder it becomes for local talent. The solution to their problem appears to be spending even more which then goes on highly paid talent.

Alternatively since moving to FF in particular we have shown a pretty decent conveyor belt. Likewise we have Connolly, Holland, Ledson, Yates, Davies, Kenny, Evans who are all regularly capped by England youth teams and lads like Walsh and Dowell who are very well thought of. All of them are within 30 minutes drive of our stadium. The questions I would ask are;
1) How much effort/money/time would it take to recruit a similar group of young players/internationals from abroad?
2) Could that money be more efficiently spent on local talent?

I think what I shows to me, is that there is more than enough talent within the local area for us, and our strength is tapping into that. That's not to say it shouldn't be counter balanced by bringing others in, but I do think you need to be careful. How would the above lads moral have been impacted if we'd have brought in a series of very highly paid foreign youngsters who are on a similar level to them?

The biggest worry I have for Everton currently is Manchester City. Their best player in their under 16's (who may leave) used to be with us. They've got another great prospect from Huyton in the same year group. We should not be losing out on those players and we do need to think of ways to try to combat City on that.

I don't disagree with anything you have said and I think that ultimately we will see clubs do what I posted a little while back about the youngsters from far flung countries. We will develop academies in their own countries or at least their own continents. We will only see the best from these satellite academies actually ever travel to Liverpool to play regularly.
If the club could produce one first team player every year it would probably pay the entire cost of the youth development system.
 

I was going to write this as a short update post on one of our young players but it also touches on a number of recent themes.

Fraser Hornby is a 16 year old who has been on our books since we bought him from Northampton's youth set up about 18 months ago. There's a complicated fee structure involved which I won't repeat , anyway he's another example of our scouting system identifying someone at a young age and bringing him to our Academy. He appears to have been on the sub bench for a couple of u18 games of late, may even have started or got on as there are gaps in the info flow we get , as there is a policy of not saying too much on the 15/16 year olds who are still at school.

In the past week or so he has been with the Scotland U17 squad at the UEFA u17 Elite qualifying round and has played the last two games in midfield , against Czech Republic, 2-0 win and against Denmark 0-4 loss. Tomorrow Scotland play Switzerland . I did vaguely wonder why he wasn't one of the very young players who went out to Dallas for experience, so I guess the reason was he'd been selected for his country. While of course that doesn't signify anything in terms of his talent and potential it's a good start if he's being recognised at this age.

Every year there's always a thought of will the next Scholars be any good , can they continue the recent tradition ? Well we won't know until probably this time next year if the 2016 Scholars are any good , but there may be potential there with Hornby, Denny playing so well in Dallas and two other 16 year olds Jordan Corke and Nathan Moore also appearing in the Dallas squad.
 
I was going to write this as a short update post on one of our young players but it also touches on a number of recent themes.

Fraser Hornby is a 16 year old who has been on our books since we bought him from Northampton's youth set up about 18 months ago. There's a complicated fee structure involved which I won't repeat , anyway he's another example of our scouting system identifying someone at a young age and bringing him to our Academy. He appears to have been on the sub bench for a couple of u18 games of late, may even have started or got on as there are gaps in the info flow we get , as there is a policy of not saying too much on the 15/16 year olds who are still at school.

In the past week or so he has been with the Scotland U17 squad at the UEFA u17 Elite qualifying round and has played the last two games in midfield , against Czech Republic, 2-0 win and against Denmark 0-4 loss. Tomorrow Scotland play Switzerland . I did vaguely wonder why he wasn't one of the very young players who went out to Dallas for experience, so I guess the reason was he'd been selected for his country. While of course that doesn't signify anything in terms of his talent and potential it's a good start if he's being recognised at this age.

Every year there's always a thought of will the next Scholars be any good , can they continue the recent tradition ? Well we won't know until probably this time next year if the 2016 Scholars are any good , but there may be potential there with Hornby, Denny playing so well in Dallas and two other 16 year olds Jordan Corke and Nathan Moore also appearing in the Dallas squad.

Was interesting that so many young players featured in Dallas, with only Denny (?) getting game time. Great experience for the younger kids, but seems also to have set the stage for them. Doesn't seem like there was ever any intention of several of them playing this year.

Also, wondered what specifically Brewster and Yarney were talking about, having something to show "some people." Any thoughts on this?
 
I don't disagree with anything you have said and I think that ultimately we will see clubs do what I posted a little while back about the youngsters from far flung countries. We will develop academies in their own countries or at least their own continents. We will only see the best from these satellite academies actually ever travel to Liverpool to play regularly.
If the club could produce one first team player every year it would probably pay the entire cost of the youth development system.

Yes well we will see. I know we have some very good people working out in America running their youth soccer who were involved with our academy. It would be nice to formalise a partnership there!
 
TEAMS,KICK OFF 11 AM

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