Dobbin proud to sign pro forms with Everton

It is nice to read the humble comments from this lad and the other fella the other day - both attributing their success to their families’ support. Hope they stay grounded and focused to become footballers who can realise their full potential, and hopefully, one day play for the Everton senior team.

Unfortunate name. At first I thought it was going to be a humorous piece about us signing a cart horse.

Good luck! I struggle to keep up to date on our young prospects, so haven’t heard of this guy yet, but his surname has the ‘tell-tale‘ signs of someone good ‘on-the-grass’ of a football snitch... I mean pitch.
My coat is already on

So he must have been with us for about 7-8 years from the age of 10?
I know the rewards if you make it is the stuff of dreams but it must put a lot of pressure on the family coming from outside of Liverpool. Does anyone know how much training these kids have to do at what age? Good luck, lad.

Well done Lewis keep developing and you could be in the first team squad before you know it.

Duncan @3, with all due respect to the lad's surname, we had 10 Dobbins playing on Sunday, Eeyore! :-)

This lad is the real deal. I’ve been watching him whenever I can for a year now. Bayern Munich have been after him and a host of other European Clubs.

He plays up top, or left of a front three. He’s similar to Richarlison in that way. However the player I’d say he’s most like is James Vaughan. He’s stocky, he’s lightning fast, not quite as powerful as Vaughan was but he’s got more tricks in his locker and better technique. He doesn’t just rely on pace and power to score. He can beat a man, and cutting inside from the left onto his right, he just seems to blow past central defenders. The lad needs to keep going, to keep his head screwed on and the sky is the limit

He’s scored 6 in 10 u18s games so far this season and even been in the u23s at the age of 16. His highlight was making the bench for a league trophy game (ie professional) against Mansfield.

Well done young man. Enjoy every second of it. We’re all behind you.

Sorry it was Burton Albion. Here’s Unsworth in the Echo raving about the lad:
Link

The other one, with big potential, is Tyler Onyango and he’s not 17 until March, and he’s already a mainstay of the u23s. He’s not as flashy as Dobbin, but the fact he’s 16 and hardly looks out of place speaks volumes.

Really impressed with Onyango. He looked at home in U23s from the start.

Brent, how big is he now? He looks huge, but that’s huge amongst kids. And if he’s huge at 16, just how tall is he going to be? The comparisons with similarly tall, Patrick Vieira are easily made. They play the same position and Tyler is clearly trying to emulate him. He’s a mouthwatering prospect. Most of the battle will be keeping his feet on the ground and keeping him working hard.

Steve, a big lad in height and weight. A man already. I’ve not seen him have a bad game yet.

The nice thing about young Dobbin is that he’s shown he can play and score in three attacking positions. He looked good supporting Simms while playing on the right in an u18 game last season, and he’s scored a raft of goals for England u15/ 16/17 coming in from the left and as a straight 9. A Gordon/Simms/Dobbin would be an interesting U23s attack sometime this season.

He looked out of his depth against Barton's butchers when Fleetwood kicked Baningime out of the game. They clattered him 3 times in a couple of minutes and the final time made sure he wasn't getting back up and running it off. Onyango came on for him and looked scared.

Steve I think Fleetwood is a bit of a different proposition! Butchers indeed.

Phill, I believe that he also played off Tom Cannon in the Newcastle game, when he scored 2, and local lad (but Irish International) Cannon scored just one (for his 11th goal in 9 games!). There was no highlights for that one though.

Steve, yeah Cannon has been the nice surprise this season, a times grabbing the headlines from Dobbin with his goals and as you say they’ve formed a good partnership.
We can’t get too carried away at their ages, but putting it into perspective, in his first season Simms struggled to get into the u18s initially, whereas these two are regular goalscorers..

I would say that Lewis Dobbin is the one who grabs the attention as he has the speed, the tricks, and is the most video friendly (as in someone can make him look like a young Messi with a YouTube compilation), whereas Tom Cannon just seems to keep popping up in the right place and taping them in. He's no goal hanger though and can slot them home with precision from the edge of the box.

Who do you prefer Phil?

Also, what about Bobby Carroll. I liked the look of him, but he's been out injured and I saw him on twitter from a hospital bed saying he'd had an operation. I hope he's back fit soon.

Any idea what happened to MacKenzie Hunt? He was a decent centre-mid for the u18s last season and Tyler Onyango and Einar Iversen seem to have leapfrogged him as he's barely featured for the u23s. I liked what I saw of him, and wanted to see if he could step up a level.

Steve (17), MacKenzie Hunt played in the F.A. youth cup game versus Derby County this season along with Dobbin, Hunt has been injured and that game was one of the few he played in this season. The less said about that game, the better, in my opinion, although Phill (15) has a different point of view on that game, and he could be right.

Yeah Dobbin for me is the stand out, been following his progress through the England ranks, which is always a good indicator. I think you’ve covered his talents comprehensively, can’t add much to that! It’s his skill level and speed which excites me.
There was a photo of him celebrating after he scored against West Brom with Onyango joining in and intriguingly a third player is shown who I think is a Schoolboy attacker, Katia Kouyate, one to look out for next season!

Haha Dave (18) you really need to let that Youth Cup defeat go :-), if you thought they weren’t trying I’d hate to have been within earshot of you on Sunday night.
I continue to be quite forgiving of the inconsistencies you get with our youngsters, less so with their overpaid elders!

Phill (20), you should have heard me when they played Arsenal, I was shouting at both teams in that rubbish of a game!!!

Against Liverpool, watching on tv, first half we provided some moments to think we could win, the second half I was just speechless, we offered nothing, except my ticker going on the blink looking at that disgrace of trying to play football.

Against Derby County in the F.A. youth game you could be right in me forgetting it, but to me winning that cup is always a cup we should be striving to win, there didn’t seem to me, to be anyone bursting their gut to try and win the game.

(Like Jimmy Hogan) I assumed it was Dobbin the horse, being brought it to shore up the midfield. Well, a clapped out old nag would still be an improvement. It could do a job swap with Schneiderlin, who could deliver the milk instead.

You'd trust Schneiderlin to deliver the milk?

ee or to do well - I'll get my coat.