Martinez committed to Everton Academy

Besides transfers, this is the most important thing for this club; we need Martinez to try a lot harder then Moyes did, and he will.

I am a little concerned if RM has the ability to pick out the right transfers, however. His record recently is weak.

Barkley had a good game against Arsenal, then he was dropped for the fit again, out of form Osman.

I really hope RM gives the youngsters a fairer crack of the whip.

Thank God we have a coach now who will give youth a try.

That aside, he's saying just the right things. My single biggest criticism of DM was his treatment of youngsters. Lets hope RM changes all that.

Essentially he's been shopping in the bargain bin while at wigan and still been able to get the likes of Arouna Kone, Shaun Maloney, Antolin Alcaraz and James McArthur for a combined total of about £4M. Thats not too shoddy, is it?

I'm thinking along the same lines as Mark Frere. Most of our youngsters were sidelined last season, as they had been for the most part under Moyes. I think we now have a manager who really understands we need to develop our own talent to survive. This can only be good for the club.

Don't waste your breath mate. He will not reply. He never does when questioned.

He's very very good at giving it but not good at all at taking it.
He forms these opinions of things and people based on what, I don't know, and never budges a single inch.

Jimmy, answer the question:

'Jimmy, in what respect do you think Martinez transfer record is weak?'

There will be no answer.

Overall I would probably say his transfer record at Wigan was decent but not totally reassuring.

I'm willing to give him the chance though. Stones, Barkley, Duffy, McAleny and Junior can be capable squad players next season, then hopefully develop further. It's not as if we don't have any decent players coming through.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/may/08/sir-alex-ferguson-best-worst-signings

http://www.talksport.co.uk/magazine/features/130411/12-arsene-wenger-signings-worse-andrey-arshavin-195440?p=1

That has happened at most academies for a long time. It needs, in my opinion, the forward thinking foreign coaches to change it.

Martinez was involved with all age groups at Wigan, he puts the hours in to oversee the development. I think this lad will bring a lot of kids through. Irvine, Stubbs and Sheedy are bringing some great young players through the system already... Martinez will get them into the squad and trust them, unlike the previous manager who was scared of them making mistakes. You only have to look at our 5 players in the under 20 squad to see the quality of the kids coming through.

It would be great for kids brought up knowing what Everton means to people to get into the squad together. My tip to make a big impact would be John Lundstram, he is probably one for the season after next, in my opinion, a future England international without a doubt.

I have heard our Under-16s have a lot of players with a big chance.

Martinez will likely have to hit the ground running as I think if the Fellaini sale goes through, which I suspect it will at some point. we will be spending more money this summer than we have since Lescott was sold. I hope we see some interesting 20-24 year old players come in as this is the age range that we seem to be lacking in the current team apart from Coleman.

In terms of the youth players, soundbites are very easy but we will have to wait to see how much playing time they get and what they do with it. There do seem to be some good players coming through, as the England U20 squad attests to... but history dictates that probably only one or two of them will end up playing regularly for a top Premier League team.

He's an effortless communicator. I like the way he makes almost no effort to manage expectations, heh. Hope we can support him through the inevitable struggles.

We do have a lot of decent youth. I really hope to see a lot more of Barkley and I think Martinez can get the best out of him.

I'll be made up if we keep Neville on for coaching too.

Our first eleven when fit almost picks itself at the moment. To see Duffy start would mean dropping Jagielka or Distin. To see Barkley start would mean dropping Osman or Felliani. To see Vellios start would mean dropping Jelavic or Anichebe. At the moment, the only change I would put money on would be Barkley for Osman.

The younger players at Everton, like at any other club, will have to play their way into Martinez's plans. Right now, our starting eleven is fully fit with the exception of Gibson who is recovering from injury. I can't see any automatic changes involving younger players. We can see at the end of the first week in August if pre-season training and friendlies have caused any injuries but for now I would be happy to see last season's starting eleven start in mid-August.

Lundstrum is a cracking player. His range of passing is as good as I've seen from a lad that age. In fact there's probably only Gibbo at the club who also has both the vision and the ability to play a 40-50 yard ball. They both share a ferocious shot on them as well.

Barkley is clearly the one who we expect to mature and see most of this season, and rightly so, but I'm also very excited about the progress of McAleny, Junior and Kennedy. All three lack stature but are blessed with tremendous skill, pace and a desire to play football the right way. Junior is Manny Fernandes's double. Tenacious, aggressive and wonderful feet. I often re-watch that YouTube clip of Fernandes dancing around 4 or 5 Arsenal players. Junior is just the same.

McAleny and Kennedy are fairly similar to one another. Short, pacey, skillful, low centre of gravity. Both have played on the wing for the U21's but Kennedy is more suited there. McAleny is a born finisher and as part of a two man strike force could be a real asset to us.

I haven't been this excited for a new season in a long time (around 12 months); let's hope RM delivers!

Jelavic, Anichebe and Osman are in and out of form, there are potentially a lot of games and there will be injuries.

Naismith still has something to prove, Johnny might well be off. There's definitely a bit of room for youth to make a mark, even if it is just a couple.

As a Moyes fan, something he never understood was the feelings of fans. If an experienced player makes a mistake, fans might be pretty livid, and if it costs points they go home angry and frustrated. When young players make mistakes fans are far more forgiving and accepting, and its much easier to look on the bright side when its a promising 18-21 year old.

Many youngsters realise this and play with far greater freedom and therefore creativity than experienced players. This makes youth an asset intrinsically, even before the quality of the player is factored in.

"Going forward" - nothing about defense?! I hate that phrase "going forward".

Perfectly put.

It just always annoyed me to see our academy boys sitting on the bench during a game we were winning and not getting a chance of 10-15 minutes play. Then we'd throw on a senior player (Heitinga or Naismith etc), out of position, to see out 5 minutes or less.

Yes, the Leeds game showed that a few of the players may have not been ready but a gradual integration back to first team matches would have done them the world of good. Junior did have a bad 45 minutes but he's then spent the rest of the season back in the stiffs. Hardly a confidence boost for the boy to lose a year of experience/development.

I would have much rather seen him and Barkley than bring in Hitzlsperger from injury and pay him £15/20k a week for 200 minutes of match-time... As the guys at the top said, though they may just be soundbites, Roberto is making all the right noises as far as I'm concerned.

We badly need a good academy but getting kids up to Premiership standard will not be easy. The skill might be there but, as with Gosling, Rodwell and Barkley, they will dither on the ball till their minds eventually adjust to the lightning pace of games at the top level. Moyes wouldn't risk it. Will Martinez? Can he afford to risk it?

Brent first in #042 writes 'defense'. Then says in #215 that he hates it spelt 'the American way' - so the very way he just wrote it. And then Michael compounds my confusion by suggesting that the majority of English users spell it 'defense'.

What the bloody hell is going on?

I was (mistakenly) trying to make an obscure point about the use of the term "majority" with a presumption about the relative numbers of English users in the world who spell it "defense" and not "defence".

Although, if Google is anything to go by, the score is something like 508 million vs 161 million.

Incidentally, after a quick scan, more than 500 million of those 'defense' articles are about how to spell the word incorrectly.

Michael: Google is definitely something to go by, but the results are filtered according to region.

I'm in Canada right now... what comes up in the UK when you Google one versus the other?

I forget where I read it, but there was a definitive process of Americanising (Americanizing) the written English language to clean it up phonetically. Words were doctored to be written how they sound.

It's not something I have a problem with. I'd just ask that anyone bastardising the English language adds a warning before they burn my eyes.

defense VS defence

Irland: 387 - 165

Saudi Arabia: 510 - 210

India: 3020 - 210

Barkley has had virtually no opportunity in the first team under Moyes, yet he seemed to look one of our better players at Arsenal and Spurs at the back end of last season. Yes, it's a risk to play them, but it's more of a risk to not give talented home-grown young players a chance to become first team players in my opinion.

Sam, I've no doubt RM has signed some bad players. But who hasn't? Krøldrup & Bily were two of Moyes's expensive mistakes. Wenger, SAF have both signed complete duffers for vast fees too. If someone is going to say RM's transfer policy is poor, I expect that they qualify that vs the performance of his peers.

I shouldn't write with such a straight face!

s

The premier league is as cut throat as it gets. You notice when Osman or Distin or Fellaini makes a huge error because it so rarely happens. The kids will be making these sort of errors on a far more frequent basis. Some of these so-called old pros that were supposedly average every single week making loads of mistakes were in reality very good premier league players who made very few mistakes which is why we challenged the top 4 for a lot of the season.

I agree that the kids who are good enough should be integrated more but only when they are ready. Barkley looked just alright when he played at the back end of last season – just okay, and he's supposed to be the star of our academy. Whatever people think of players like Pienaar and Osman, they are both miles ahead of him at the moment.

Look around the league, hardly anyone is playing teams full of kids. Even Wenger kept talents far more prestigious than ours such as Walcott and Chamberlain on the bench for long periods. It's only been Fabregas and Wilshere that he's trusted from a very early age and those two are exceptional. It is a very English disease to just latch upon young prospects with unrealistic hopes and thrust them into the limelight when they are not ready. Other nations wait until a whole batch of players have played regularly at an under 21 level before bringing them through as a group to the first team. I actually think Moyes used some players such as Vaughan, Rodwell, Barkley before he even wanted to out of sheer necessity.

Young players needed to be nurtured and brought through – but in the right way. Anyone thinking that Duffy, Vellios and Lundstram are anywhere near the level of Jagielka, Jelavic and Gibson are misguided. Perhaps some can come in as impact players or squad fillers but from what I've seen of the young players only Barkley is perhaps ready to fight for a first 11 spot.

He was below par against Spurs, but he was outstanding against Arsenal, and arguably our best attacking player of that match. This match was in a period when Osman's form had decreased, he was steady but not his outstanding self in the early season.

Despite Barkley's form in the previous game, Moyes dropped him for the next game and played Osman over him, which was really strange, as Barkley played well in perhaps one of the hardest games the league can throw at you, Arsenal away. I certainly don't think Osman is "miles ahead of Barkley" as you suggest.

I don't think his best position would be right behind the striker as has been suggested on here at times but if the new manager does go with the 433 option I think he wold make up a quality central 3 with Fellaini and Gibson

Theater, center, aluminum (!) et al exemplify, I believe, America's attempts to simplify and overcome the vagaries of English spelling

Each to their own as long as they don't start pushing "should of", "of thought" etc as a further bastardisation (sic)

They also advocate shortening of English words but very often do the opposite:
elevator for lift
apartment for flat
faucet for tap etc

Mind you, I am a bit biased, as I was once caused acute embarrassment when I misunderstood a young American mum's request for me to scald her a nipple.

I actually think Osman is better in the hole, he's too lightweight for me in centre mid, although I do agree he is more consistent in that deeper role.

But in terms of that game, I think Fellaini played with Gibson in that deeper role (which is his best positon), and Barkley played further forward. I think in the next game, Osman played with Gibson and Fellaini played further forward (was it because we played Stoke next, I seem to remember?)

Either way, that change hindered Barkley and was undeserved, especially as Osman's form was declining.