Everton U23s kick off the season with a draw at Ewood Park

83 mins

It was an entertaining game, fair result will post more soon.

It would be nice to think most of these lads could grow together as a team over the next few years, or is that too fanciful?

Yeah you could see that Butterfield and Price work well together despite being both 17, they’ve played together for years.
These kids are well coached, well drilled and disciplined, they play from the back, press when needed, switch to a different formation when we are defending, all part of modern football. In truth it can be difficult to pick out the outstanding individual that stands out these days. Hopefully as you say they can grow together as a team.
To be honest I just enjoy watching them play and see their improvement without having great expectations that we’ll have a raft of them playing for the first team soon.

I know we have been here before with our youth teams – the crop with Dowell, Kenny, Connolly, Walsh, Calvert-Lewin and Davies in particular – and expectations have rarely been fulfilled (Calvert-Lewin aside), but these seem a particularly exciting group, so who knows what the future holds, and if we have a manager who is happy to blood them?

Glad to hear Butterfield caught your eye. It's a huge shame that Onyango was injured last season but the opportunities that has afforded to Butterfield have been well and truly taken by the 17-year-old (in my opinion anyway).

I think his general positional play and his discipline in terms of screening the back four particularly impressed me in his performances last season, and he gets about the pitch very well too. I am enjoying his emergence.

Trevor, often I get more pleasure from watching our “kids” than the first team! It was a shame the live stream was announced so late as I know others would have watched it too, that's when the forum aspect with others giving their views comes into its own, we each see different things, styles etc.

Martinez's “Golden Generation” and others are good yardsticks as they were quite recent and help temper expectations – are they as good as Liam Walsh or Kieran Dowell at the same age? We will see,….

A good comparison, Butterfield was certainly playing the same role as when Onyango plays deep, allowing Price to move further forward, but he wasn't afraid to run with the ball when he had it.

In fact, one of the good things last night was that both Astley and Welch carried the ball into the opponent's half a few times, great confidence to do that.

Spot on about the failure of the Golden Generation to really fulfill expectations tempering expectations. It's the million-dollar question – if they had been given a proper chance in the first team at that age, would they have really grabbed it and not just drifted as most of them do? Who knows?

Jonjoe Kenny did actually get that chance, Tom Davies too, but have not truly built on the promise. Benitez hasn't got the greatest record for blooding youngsters but, if they really are good enough, maybe he will.

Don’t worry about getting my name wrong Phill, but call me anything except Dave or Brent please mate!

Jonjoe is a topic many of us have debated. Most had high hopes, but I agree, he needs to go elsewhere.

The worrying thing is that having been loaned out to 2 big clubs, neither followed up. And in the context, one was on a downward spiral and the other in the process of being trumped by their rejuvenated neighbours. So if they weren't interested, that's not a good sign.

Having watched him for Schalke, he seems to lack positional awareness, which leads to giving a perception of being a headless chicken at times. In simple terms, he runs around a lot. He also got absolutely schooled by Sabitzer and Leipzig when I watched.

In his defence, another youngster who has come through at a time of turbulence at Everton. And there seemed to be a question mark over where to play him. Certainly at Schalke, where they played him as a wing back at times. Nothing wrong with that for a right sided defender, but just goes back to whether the lad has had stability.

He needs to find a club to get that stability. Maybe drop a level or two and get his career going rather than stagnating as mentioned above.

Alternatively, prove my doubts wrong. I'd be delighted if you do Jonjoe. A true blue, both for Everton and in his short stint with the Konigsblauen (Royal Blues), where he was very popular.