The club’s famous academy has also been earmarked for improvement. Internally, there is a view that the well has been allowed to run dry and that the conveyor belt has slowed. When a club is struggling to pay its bills, as Everton was at the fag end of the Farhad Moshiri regime, the academy is often the target for savings.
That is no longer the case. Officials believe that Everton can offer a pathway to the first team above and beyond that provided by their North West rivals. That they can look parents in the eye and tell them that their child has more chance of making it here than anywhere else.
Extra investment has been made. The club believe they were successful in bringing children into the setup at the age of six but were then losing the best of them to perceived bigger rivals when they hit 12.
Nick Cox, formerly Manchester United’s director of academy, is now Everton’s technical director and is influential, but there is an immediate gap to be filled with a dearth of talent coming through behind Harrison Armstrong, a gifted midfielder who has made 13 first-team appearances this season.
As a result, focus will be placed on recruiting players between the ages of 16 to 20. The view is that there are a lot of unhappy parents and a lot of prospects elsewhere who have 14 players blocking their route to the first team at clubs whose strategy is to stockpile talent.
