orly
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Cheers C-Frandel
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Cheers C-Frandel
sageyefc
Player Valuation: £90m
Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
Anyone have a subscription
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ve-interview-everton-definitely-harder-local/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ve-interview-everton-definitely-harder-local/
Only on here.
Everyone I know at the match in in the pub beforehand is delighted for Tom.
The kid is living the dream we have all dreamt at one time or another
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Tom Davies exclusive interview: 'At Everton, it's definitely harder for the local lads in difficult times'
Tom Davies is listening intently as two scenarios are put to him. Number one: your team is 1-0 down in the dying minutes of a cup final and has just had a player sent off. What are you thinking? Number two: you have just been informed that you are being made redundant. Again, what are you thinking?
“Stay positive,” the midfielder says to both situations as he takes part in the Everton in the Community Imagine Your Goals programme. His group, including Leighton Baines and Cenk Tosun, is highlighting the importance of well-being and mental health and alongside them are some of those who have benefitted from the charity’s work.
“They are there because of football,” Davies later says. “So the message was, ‘you can do this in a football match so you can do this in your life’. The sense of turning it into a positive and thinking of bad things in a different light. I know I would try to do that. Be positive and keep thinking you are going to win.”
And, as a young footballer, keep thinking you are going to make it. “Coming through the academy has been good, but it’s also been tough, there have been many hurdles,” Davies admits, having joined Everton from Tranmere Rovers when he was just 10. “When Everton came asking for me I couldn’t say no, could I?” he says, grinning.
Davies may come from a Merseyside family that is both red and blue but the 20 year-old’s allegiances were always clear, not least because his uncle is Alan Whittle, a famous Evertonian who burst onto the scene in the winter of 1969 and then scored the goal that clinched the league title later that season.
“Some of the goals he scored were unbelievable, really,” Davies says, revealing that he sometimes sits down with his mum to go back through the archives. “He had a great career. It’s hard to think he was doing that before I was even born and now it’s kind of flipped and I am playing for Everton.
“I guess it’s a family tradition and one I have to keep up! It’s good to listen to him telling me about what it was like to win the league with Everton. It makes me want to win something with Everton even more.”
There are pluses and minuses to being a local lad. Davies, from West Derby, feels the good will towards him throughout Liverpool, a city he loves. “That’s the way people are here,” he says, but he accepts that, sometimes, it can add to the pressure. “I think it’s because you have that attachment to the club and it becomes an emotional thing,” Davies explains. “But it’s going well for me, and I am happy, but I know what you mean. It definitely can be harder in the difficult times for the local lads.”
Naturally there were moments when he feared he would not make it, moments when he had to stay positive. “I remember being in the academy and maybe I wasn’t the best player,” Davies says. “Things like that and then you think, ‘will I get my chance?’ And then you start to get better and find your feet but there was always that doubt, even if it’s something that you cannot think about, and that also goes back to mental health – having that positive spin and thinking, ‘it’s going to be me (who makes it)’.
“There was no secret, it was definitely about hard work. I didn’t just come by me thinking that. It was about working on the training ground, staying behind, going to the gym. I also had a good group around me and a few lads who are still here - Kieran Dowell, Callum Connolly, Jonjoe Kenny. I have been playing with Kieran since I was little.”
A significant moment came earlier this season when Davies was awarded the captain’s armband for a League Cup tie against Rotherham United, becoming the youngest player in the club’s history to do so. “He (Dowell) was playing alongside me,” he says of his close friend. “I had Jonjoe at right-back. Mason (Holgate), we were in the Under-21s together. Dom (Calvert-Lewin) up front. It’s an odd scenario that you are playing with the lad but it feels normal as we have been together for a long time. It makes it better. If you see us around here we are always together - me, Kieran, Jonjo and Dom, just the four of us. Joined at the hip!
“I think it also gives you that competitiveness. If you see one doing well then you say to yourself, ‘come on, I’ve got to do that’. It’s good, it’s very good to have that around you.”
Davies retained the armband, which means a lot to him, for the Premier League game away to Arsenal, which Everton were unfortunate to lose, and the back-to-back wins over Leicester City and Fulham.
But he found himself out of the team for last weekend’s home victory against Crystal Palace, with Andre Gomes finally fit after his loan signing from Barcelona. This Sunday, Everton are away to Manchester United and Davies is fighting to get back in.
How did it feel to go from captain to substitute? “We have a very good squad, very good competition,” Davies says. “It’s healthy and it’s what you want. Now there will be more rotation with three or four players who can play a position. Obviously I want to get back into the team so I will just train as hard as I can.”
Davies has also done what he did last season - he has asked the question: what do I have to do to get back in? “You want to play. So it makes sense to then speak to people and ask them what you have to do. Last season I did that and this season I am focussing on doing that again,” Davies says.
This season is very different, though. Under Marco Silva there is a plan, a belief that was lacking after a turbulent campaign with three managers – Ronald Koeman, David Unsworth and Sam Allardyce. “He (Silva) is big on tactics. He will have us in playing 11 v 11, working on shape and being very clear,” Davies says. “It’s what you need and when we are playing you can see we have that definite structure to the team, far better than last year. And in attack we are creating more chances, scoring more goals.
“It’s a lot more settled. People appear to be enjoying it more, just around the place and in training. That consistency gives us more and allows us to get into the routine of what we want to do. Last season it was a lot like – you’d get something going and it would change and we could not get on a run.
“Last year we had three or four different styles of play while this season we have got our base structure. It also means I have been able to focus on myself a bit more rather than be wondering, ‘is the manager still going to be here? Am I going to have to impress a new manager? Am I going to get in the team?’”
Consistency is the key. Davies is well aware that the reference point for him is his extraordinary wonder-goal, a run and a dinked finish, in the win against Manchester City in January 2017 with which he burst onto the scene. “Definitely when I broke through, especially with the moment against City and the win we got, it was a high standard, I set the bar high, and I am just trying to get back to that level,” he says.
Davies’ positivity is partly why he has not only captained Everton but also the England under-age groups he has played for. “You will have to ask the managers why they have picked me!” he says, laughing. “But I think I’m a good character around the place. I am always happy, always positive. I feel it (captaincy) is something I can do although I am young and still developing.”
Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
He mentions players that came through our youth system and he's therefore known for years. we bought lookman and holgate quite late.Cheers
Interesting he doesnt name Lookman or Holgate in his group of mates?
Zatara
Player Valuation: £90m
We bought DCL ?
Good point. Maybe it's because lookman was on loan last season and holgate isnt in the u21s as much? Who knows
Cheers
Interesting he doesnt name Lookman or Holgate in his group of mates?
Think they're just not part of the crew which is a shame.
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
Ha. I can almost hear the groans in the Davies and Calvert Lewin families. Oh god no. Orly's back
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
Didn't Commodus buy it in the end?. Thought so.
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
Holgate has looked part of things in these BTS videos. And certainly on the pitch there's always seemed to be a special camaraderie between him and the other young players.
Lookman not so much, and I think that may be part of the problem with him not settling as well.
Think people are reading too much into Davies’ three mates. He’s known Dowell since about 10 , there were pics of them on holiday together a couple of years ago. He’s played and trained with the older Kenny for about the last four years , including recent England call ups. And Davies and DCL have had a bromance going since after DCL arrived , well documented in pics etc. Just four guys who get along .
Tennessee Blue Mike
Player Valuation: £50m
As we gather top names in the side he may struggle for game time like he has seen.
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