Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
Yet hes already made his debut and trains with the first team...
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Yet hes already made his debut and trains with the first team...
n01efc
Player Valuation: £20m
Don’t you think bringing him on in that game was just a gesture to show he was loved so he would sign? Wasn’t at a time when could field a bench of first team players due to injury? He wasn’t on the bench after that I don’t think?
Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
Well, its been a long long time since we brought on a 16 year old to entice them to sign a deal.
Perhaps you could name a couple?
n01efc
Player Valuation: £20m
That’s slightly off the point I was trying to make in that although he made his first team debut he is hardly classed (in my mind at least) as on the verge of the first team rather there were numerous factors ie it’s understandable in the context at the time why he got some minutes because of lots of injuries, his contract etc. There had been rumbling about his contact for months which is why I’m speculating
EFC_FRANCIS
Player Valuation: £35m
I wasn't pinning it on the academy more so the first team. The club can't continuously harp on about 'the pathway' and how youngsters will always get chances and then escape criticism when someone who the club believed in so much they made him the youngest player ever doesn't see a way into the team.
His camp leaked out early in the year he wasn't happy with his progress in that he wasn't in first team trainings or involved enough and Ancelotti/Brands did nothing to rectify it. Him leaving wasn't some inevitability, we were warned in Jan he was going to leave if nothing was done and then nothing was.
Now you can say the kid has got too big for his boots or whatever but I mean he is the best English left back in his age group, the club have made him their youngest ever player for a reason- he's quite clearly not your standard academy player sometimes they do need fast tracking and special treatment. Balotelli was setting fireworks off in his bath, Jadon Sancho left City for the same reasons Small has and he's turned out OK.
Should a club like us make sacrifices for a 16 year old like Small in the worry he may end up Sancho level? Possibly not. In which case you can't blame the club for sticking to their principles and just have to accept some talent will leave. For me though this could be the start of others seeing him leave and following suit as if Small can't get a chance in the first team what chance does anyone else have
We can’t fill the team up with U16 year olds and he won’t dislodge Digne.
He won’t get a game at Utd or Arsenal either.
At 16 he needs to play in a youth team for a little longer.
mightymoyes
Player Valuation: £70m
thats rubbish, if you're good enough you're old enough.
if hes good enough is up for debate though, he obviously thinks he is.
I don't think the reasoning is "I'm good enough for the first team" I think he's wondering what a young player has to do to get a crack at Everton these days.
Nkounko is ahead of him in the pecking order and Small probably looks at when Digne has been out and Nkounko still wasn't given games. Out of position senior players, who'd already underperformed in their natural position, got the nod instead.
To a young player that screams that the club would sooner reward the failure of senior players than give a young player a chance to play.
Fireworks in the bath? Coming out of a nightclub the night before a match? A manager publicly criticising his efforts in training?
What reminds you of Balotelli about him?
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
The ego.
I'm not saying that he is going to do any of the things that Balotelli did. He might. I don't think so.
I'm saying that his ego is getting in the way of him being the player he could be. I hope he hears this, and changes that before he turns into Balotelli.
Why is he being portrayed as being egotistic to decide that Everton might not be the best place to start his professional career?
We have a pretty poor record in recent years of developing academy talent and putting them in the first team. He's just spent a season, even two, of watching woefully underperforming players being played out of position rather than chances given to young players and a subs bench with two keepers and empty seats.
For a young player to see that and maybe think the next step of his career might be better served elsewhere isn't necessarily egotistic.
This might not be a case of Small thinking he should be starting games but seeing lots of young players slightly older than him hit a dead-end at Everton despite several players in the senior squad being clearly substandard. It's maybe not about being in the first team right now but seeing a path to the first team.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
Because he is sixteen, he is pushing for a first-team place ahead of Digne, and he is not, in fact, Rooney.
I agree that he should probably move. This is not best for the club, but it's best for him.
Refusing to come to training is egotistical. He is sixteen. He has not done enough to be entitled to hold out for a move. He should be glad we're willing to give him a professional contract on the day he becomes eligible.
If he doesn't want to do that here, he should do it the right way. Show up for training. Pass on our contract. See if we move him, or if we let him go on a free next summer. I bet we move him, because something and a 25% sell-on is better than nothing.
It'n no more egotistical than walking out on WBA at 11 to come to Everton. Shouldn't he have been grateful that WBA's academy picked him up and invested time and effort to set him on the path to professional football?
He's a 16 year old. Multi million companies shouldn't get too precious about a child deciding to go elsewhere. He doesn't have to do something to be entitled to a move...he's sixteen. The club aren't entitled to own him and as a child he isn't under contract to come into training.
Ron Burgundy
Player Valuation: £10m
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