Michael Collins is picked up by Sunderland

Additionally, the following Academy Under-18 players from last season appear to have been released by the Club:

Pawel Zuk
Kameron Stanley
Elliot Richards
Tom Warren
Barry McKeown
Ethan Warnock

All are listed on TransferMarkt as being "Without Club".

A terrible time for these young lads getting released, some of them possibly being at Finch Farm since a very early age. I hope they get fixed up pretty quickly.

You can't help but feel for them.

I share Dave's sentiments. Would be nice to think they could all find a new home from which to chase the dream.

Darren, Dave, yes the crushing disappointment these lads must be feeling. you just hope that their parents kept them “grounded” and didn't allow them to neglect their education. I've seen parents...Dads usually...who try to live their own dreams through their kids in football, and golf, chasing the almost impossible dream and when it comes to an end it's the kid who is let down.

Young players being released every season from the Under-18s and Under-23s should not come as a shock as it happens all the time when players are associated with a big club who have to buy the very best to compete. Otherwise, Everton would find themselves relegated to the Championship where younger players are more likely to be destined.

Those younger players who came through the junior ranks would have been given a valuable football education that will be with them for the rest of their lives and will allow them at worst give them a decent living doing something they enjoy in a footballing environment that will be pleasurable and not a chore.

Yes all part and parcel of football I'm afraid!

The Man City Academy has a link with a local school (incidentally Michael Keane's alma mater). The Academy kids spend half a day having normal lessons at the school, and then transfer over to the City Academy for the rest of the day. The upshot is that they get a half-decent education, and a clutch of GCSEs behind them, when the disappointment arrives.

I would hope that Everton has some sort of similar arrangement, so that these kids have some sort of options going forward.

With a name like that, how can he fail to be a success?

Shane (8), going to town the other day I passed James Larkin Way, around Boundary Street, would have made a strong centre back pairing with Michael Collins!!!