McAleny goal edges U21s past Fulham

A quick run through of how the players performed:

Springthorpe – Apart from one early fumble was solid with his catching a shot stopping.

Stones – Some good touches, but seemed to be trying too hard to impress and ended up frustrating Andy Holden particularly! Not ready for the first team yet.

Browning – Solid; it helps having Duffy next to him.

Duffy – Excellent, calm on the ball, commanding, and even brought the ball out of defence for a couple of surging runs forward!

Garbutt – Obviously has talent but seemed a little distracted and found Fulham's Chris David quite a handful at times.

Lundstram – Did a good job tidying up loose balls.

Kennedy – Andy Holden told me to keep an eye on him because he is going to be good. I could see what he meant!! Quick and very skillful; scared the life out of the Fulham full back whenever he got the ball, but seemed to get a knock and faded after the break and was subbed.

Junior – Started well but was forced off after 15 minutes after a nasty and slightly unnecessary challenge that could have produced a red card quite easily; speaking to him after he had got changed, he was obviously disappointed with the challenge and suggested he could be out for quite some time.

Vellios – Quality, Seemed that he could go up a gear or two if he wanted to but even in second gear the Fulham defence really struggled with him. Unlucky with a backwards header.

McAleny – Man of the Match, Fantastic player to watch, quality finish and Fulham had to revert to just hacking him down in the second half; he got frustrated with the ref after the 6th or 7th foul went unpunished. Andy Holden said all he needs is a run of games and he will be knocking on the first team door.

Grant – Did ok. Started well but after Junior went off he had to drop back into midfield and he didn’t seem quite as threatening.

Hope (for Junior) – Lively, some good touches and was always looking to shoot when he could.

Johns (for Kennedy) – Didn’t really have long enough to get into the game as Fulham pushed for the equaliser.

If Moyes's ambition was to play Stones in the Everton Academy for the remainder of this season, then it was a bad decision, because Everton needed badly strengthening in other positions when January transfer window opened, eg: Heitinga's position.

People are reading far too negatively far too much into every single small thing that goes on at the club. Youth player comes in and has a reserve game — same as every single other club. Ferguson spent £5 million on Nick Powell and he's barely featured in the first team. He will in a few seasons though.

Stones is an 18-year-old who cost £500k. Of course he is going to be looked at in the reserve team for a little while before being pitched into the fray.

They have watched Stones play constantly in the Championship and paid Barnsley upwards of £3 million for him, so what more do they need to know? Get the £3 million back promised if they don't like him?

We've seen it before with Cahill and Saha and now Heitinga getting game after game, not performing and costing us points. Barkley makes one error and thats his season over. Neither Vellios nor Duffy can get a lookin.

If I were Duffy or Barkley or any one of our younger players I'd be looking for the exit. Those players need competitive games and something to aim towards. Knowing that you're going to get overlooked for every match is not a way to motivate the youngsters.

He's got good close control and clearly likes to carry the ball, but as a full-back you have to know when to do that and when to keep it simple. Which is not to say I'd like to see it coached out of him entirely - there was enough hoofball on display last night as it was.

Like Chris, I thought McAleny was the pick - he really could get some game time in the seniors before the end of the season, and I'm sure wouldn't disgrace himself. Wasn't so keen on Vellios though. If he could have 'gone up a gear', why didn't he? That kind of summed up his performance for me - strangely bland and ho-hum.

Having said that, Motspur Park on a freezing night wasn't the ideal place for the beautiful game. Very nice hot chocolate though!

Looked a great little player then too, far more effective than Saha who I think he replaced(?). Not seen anything of him since; not sure how much his injury had to do with that, though.

But Moyes seems to be a very, very risk-averse manager. Doesn't seem to want to give young players the opportunity to learn in the first team and has absolutely no tolerance for mistakes from young players in particular, but seems to be less fussed if established players constantly screw up.

Unfortunately we're not a club that can ignore our home-grown talent. We need to bring them through if we're to have any chance of competing with financially better off teams. We can't be buying ready-made 1st teamers all the time.

Disappointing thats all we've seen of him given he's the sort of quick, skillful little player that gets peoples backsides off their seats, almost the antithesis of Big Vic.

The McAleny situation was quite strange, Moyes put him on against a quality Premier League side and he did really well but we never saw him again really after that! He got injured recently but the Arsenal game was in December 2011 and he certainly hasn't been injured that long!

Hopefully with his recent performances he might get a chance again, I cant see any harm with having him on the bench vs Oldham and if we are 3 or 4 up or something bringing him on and then giving him another chance against Norwich. I wont hold my breath though!

I cannot help but feel sad for Vellios and Duffy as they both shared the same faith, they got to play a few games and did well in those games, but in the end, Moyes prefers his oldies goldies over any youth player. That is a sad fact for a club like ours, we should really be doing more with our youngsters then we are doing right now.

Personally I think Vellios and Duffy should have been on loan from the start of the season; instead they are going nowhere with our U-21 side.

Moyes has had plenty of time to make a long-term plan for our youngsters, either play them for the first team or send them out on loan and let them develop there. Moyes chooses to do neither, how fucked up is that?

Come on, get busy living or get busy dieing, just do something before the gap between our first team and U-21 side is too wide to catch up to. I can see Barkley, Duffy and Vellios all being sold in the summer, because this is not good for either Everton, nor the youngsters.