Everton's Somewhat Alarming Lack Of Youth.

We obviously did not see the potential in Jags or Baines as they were both released as juniors and then ironically bought back after they were successfully developed at other clubs.

Our scouts are not finding good youngsters and our youth trainers are not bringing the best out of them. I'm afraid that at the present time our senior players have no pressure from our youngsters and can play as long as they want to!

Bart: Wow! Can I see your club?
Lou: It's called a baton, son.
Bart: Oh. What's it for?
Lou: We club people with it.

Is this just another Moyes bash?

1) You seem to miss out arguably our best younger player Fellaini, he's only 24.
2) The Liverpool players you mention Shelvey, Stirling and Henderson were all bought by Liverpool for not inconsiderable fee's. True that Wisdom is home grown but money plays a big part here.
3) I think we have had 5 players play recently in the england U19 squad Barkley, Lundstram, Hope, Garbutt and Bidwell and I would not be surprised if at least 2 or 3 of these players did not get decent first team chances at everton in the next 2 seasons.
4) Up untill the summer we had an U21 stalwart in rodwell but sold him (i think wisely) in order to strengthen the first team, which at the moment looks to be a vindicated decision.

I take your point that we don't have a huge amount of 20-22 year olds about to break in but the group just below looks promising and should be given a chance when injuries inevitably disrupt things.

Where would we be if Rooney , Jeffers et al had not been produced and sold on for fees which quite possibly saved the club from financial ruin.

It is also a concern that our near neighbours appear to have stolen a march regarding youngsters as their financial clout although lessened is still far greater than our own.

I am also concerned that everything Everton achieve seems to be about David Moyes, we are a football club not a one man band.

DM has done many good things at the club , but if everything is down to one man then we are in serious trouble if and when he leaves.

I'm sure Arsenal and Man U are heavily influenced by their respective managers but the managers in question would acknowledge that they rely on their Directors , coaches , physios and backroom staff for any of the sucessess they have had.

At Everton it would appear that without Moyes , we would find it difficult to continue on a steady course. This to my mind is gross mis-management by those who run the club , ie the board of directors.

And please...never mention Henderson as a representation of youth development. He was brought for a fee approaching 20mil at 20ish, has barely played a good match for Liverpool, cannot make even their depleted first team, and was being offered around the premierleague on deadline day. If anything he has regressed as a Liverpool player, and serves as a perfect representation of a wasteful transfer policy which has ended their tenure as one of the countries top clubs.

Also, Henderson, Shelvey and Sterling cost something close to £30million between them, add £11million for Borini (what is he 20/21?) puts the remergence of the Liverpool conveyer belt into a bit more of a realistic perspective doesn't it.

i wouldn't be saying that shelvey, henderson etc are any better than those type of players, its just that they are getting a chance cos liverpoo are so poor at the moment and i'm so glad that everton havent gone and wasted £20m quid on that type of player.

In my opinion, these young players have maybe 4 good games max then fade until they physically mature to the rigours of the premiership. Much better to send them out on loan to 'toughen up'

What is the constant need for people to want to bring in players that they know virtually nothing about? We tried that at Leeds and look what happened?

Fuucking Football manager has a lot to answer for I tells thee!!

Sterling is also getting games out of necessity as they no longer have top class internationals to play ahead of him. In short his a gamble worth taking for Rodgers.

For us if we have any young players that are better than Pienaar/Feliani/Osman/Mirallis in midfield they will get a game, if we have a better young forward than Jelavic they will get a game and so on, if you look around the premiership there are very few young English players anywhere that you would pick out to play ahead of our 1st team players, possibly Wilshere and Oxelaide Chamberlain the only 2 I can think of.

Check Southampton's list of players who've come through and went on to be REAL players.

Bridge, Bale, Walcott and Oxlade Chamberlain are among them.

I will say I'd like to see our players who have undoubted PL potential, like George Green and Ross Barkley given a LOT more time in games.

Barkley basically spent all of last season playing reserve football. Even before his injury at about this time last season, I recall Moyes saying that we shouldn't expect to be seeing him play for the first team(again) until March/April......all because he had a dodgy game where he was at fault for a goal if I recall rightly.

How many goals have jags, heitinga, distin or Neville given away? How many "dodgy" games did Louis Saha have? Tim Cahill? How are young players meant to acclimatise if as soon as they have an off-day they're banished for 6 months to the youth side? Blame supporters if you like, but that decision rests squarely with the manager.

Last season, Barkley should either have been played, or loaned out like he has been at Sheff Wed. This season, when we're leading games like we have been against southampton at home, that would be an ideal opportunity to give the likes of George Green or Junior 10-15 minutes to have a run and get experience with less pressure.

Whatever you say about the lack of money the club has, I think we can and should be doing more to ensure that young players that we do have get every opportunity to improve. I think Dick's post certainly has some validity in that respect.

The only genuinely "old" players are Distin (34) and Neville (35).

Our youngsters are all around the 17/18 year old mark. A time when they should perhaps be making a few inroads, but not playing regular first team football in a successful team.

Which of them would get into our team?

Was Shelvey really more deserving of a call up than Osman (forget age-am talking about ability & form)

Some ppl are NEVER happy. How do you know whether Bidwell, Garbutt etc will get a chance? So what if they play left back? Baines could get injure or sold or they may change position (G Neville was a ctre mid and switched to RB, Hibbert was a striker and switched, Scholes was a striker and converted to ctre mid, Rodwell was supposedly a ctre back and went midfield).

Why would we bother to buy Green & Kennedy if we have no intention to develop them?

Since Jags/Baines how many youngsters have we released that have gone on to make it? None: hence the players aren't good enough: they're getting squeezed out by the foreigners.

How many Liverpool youngsters are better than our players? Is Kelly better than Duffy?

By the way, when did Moyes say 'I'm dropping Barkley cos of his mistake vs Blackburn?' do you really think the guy is such an amateur that he has a tolerance rate of 1 mistake? Why wouldn't he drop Distin or Howard etc for the numerous mistakes they've made then

Would you really rather be mid table with unexciting youngsters like that lot or would you rather be 4th with a good team/squad and knowing that actually Bidwell, Barkley & Garbutt ARE out there getting experience?

Who was the last young lad that we let slip thru our fingers that them lot snapped up? Gerard?

Things have changed finally

Do you seriously believe the smoke and mirrors trick being spouted by that gobshite Rodgers.
I thought he was a man of integrity and all he does is moan and fucking groan about how badly they are done too.
Regards his players, he has no choice but to bullshit them up as he hasn't got a pot to piss in. Do you seriously think if he had a wadd of cash them kids would get anywhere near the first team.
As for Shelvy ! If he is international class then so was Brett Angel, the lads a fucking yard dog, a wannabe Stevie-me without the talent.

Can you also take into account that Roy has a definate weakness for players from the dark side. I mean Henderson is total shite - he's lucky if Rodgers gives him a peak at the pitch but somehow Roy plonks him into his squad. I'm guessing that Henderson in the English squad keeps his value somewhere close to a fiver - mind you nothing like the 18m they paid for him.

As for Shelvey, the guy's a thug and would last about 20 minutes against a proper international side before the ref gives him the boot - make no mistake though him and Gerrard are going put it about when the come to GP.

If you are being honest it isn't much of an accomplishment representing England - I doubt spain, germany etc give a fuck about Henderson, Shelvey or any other RS player. Even now Roy's talking about converting Gerrard into a CB.

On the other hand, David Moyes prefers to play his more experienced pros no matter how good or bad: Cahill, Neville, Arteta, Heitinga, Distin, Osman & Hibbert to name a few.

While Leon's name is mentioned, it's a point to make that he will never play for England because he simply isn't at Liverpool or Man Utd or Chelsea. I think Joe Cole would play ahead of Leon if push came to shove.

Many are also overlooking the fact that kids in football chase money not medals; for every Ryan Giggs, there will be 10 Judas Lescotts (in fairness, Lescott has now won a title but Judas wasn't guaranteed a title at the time). If players wanted progress to enhance their skills, Rooney would of stayed longer, Rodwell may have wanted to try harder to stay, etc, etc but many realise these days that a football career lasts about 10 years or 2 contracts so take the money while you can.

My rabbling on is just a few ideas I have as to why England as a footballing nation is suffering compared to Podolski dropping down a level to Cologne to reach Arsenal; Gary Cahill leaving Villa to play regularly at Bolton to reach Chelsea is the only English example I have.

I think it brings his position into question when there is so much better talent elsewhere (not necessarily in our own ranks) being overlooked in favour of the dark side - and that is me really trying to take my blue-tinted specs off too!

Moyes needs to find much better youth coaches than for example Alan Stubbs. He also now needs to buy youngsters in the age group of 17-20 who have real top potential. The only player that Moyes has got that fits that category is George Green.

Liverpool have bought their youngsters for high fees, and we cannot afford to do it exactly as they do and nor do I want us to. You have to balance it, try and find top talent for less money. I do think we need to look outside of Britain if we are to find that balance between fee and top talent.

Finally, I agree with many on here who find reds youngsters overpriced and not very good at all. Kind of a follow-up of their senior transfer policy, spend huge amounts on shite players.

Moyes needs to be as active looking for top talented youngsters as he is when looking for his senior players. Currently Moyes is only looking to find first team players, but that will have to change in order to get something from our youth players in the future!

Secondly, youth for its own sake in the first team is not a good thing, you pick the best players, and ours are all good ages. Only Neville and Distin are genuinely old.

Thirdly, Liverpool have made it a policy to buy in youth players, they don't develop them all. They're picking them, but they're not winning games, so maybe they shouldn't be. We could pick four teenagers in every game if we wanted to. We probably wouldn't win as much.

I've voiced my thoughts on the Everton youth system in the past. It's decent, better than most, but a club in our financial position should be putting everything into having the very best youth system around. If we produced one first-team player a season, and sell two to lower division clubs, we'd have a steady source of income and players. With the whole of Merseyside and beyond as our breeding ground, this should be possible on a consistent basis. Baxter for example should have been given a contract, possibly loaned out, and then sold for money, even £500k would be worthwhile.

Just two more things though, Baines was NOT released by Everton as a youth, he was released by Liverpool.

Also, Barkley is still only 18 now, I think a lot of Toffeewebbers need to remember that. I don't see the need to rush him, especially as we're performing extremely well and have been since February.

I'm afraid he was released by us. But not because of a perceived lack of talent. His entire age group were let go as a 'cost-cutting' exercise. The group also included Joey Barton and Phil Jagielka. Saved us a few bob there!

Leighton then went on to sign schoolboy forms for the RS before being released by them too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leighton_Baines