Everton U23s fall to another defeat at Leicester City

1-0 down after 12 mins, goal in 6 th minute poor defending

Dear me, 2-0 Leicester after we’d been on top. We’ve had more attacks, but they’ve scored from their two.

2-0 Leicester at half time. We’ve had a lot of play and attacks, particularly Dobbin, but only one or two clear chances, their goalkeeper only really tested once, by Dobbin.
We’re playing 3- 5-2, but at sometime it’s got to be changed.

More poor defending 3-0 Leicester

A really mediocre group of players this...and no Left Back. They have a left footed CB playing out of position. So after having problems signing a RB for 2 1/2 years, Digne is now the only recognised LB at the club. What a shambles. What does Marcel Brands actually do?

Couldn’t get to watch this. Would be interested in hearing who played well and who didn’t.

3-1 final score, Hughes with a well-worked goal in the 90th minute.

Brent, it'd be difficult picking out the good; let's just say, even with our injuries, they won't be troubling the first team any time soon. It was probably closer than 3-1 suggests but lots of improvements needed.

Thanks for the updates, Phill, appreciated.

With such a young squad, I wouldn't really expect many of them to get around the first team, Phill. But I honestly think that Under-23 football hasn't been as beneficial to English football as it was meant to have been.

Thanks a lot, Phill. Doesn’t sound as if I missed much.

Unsworth seems to have a very limited pool of players to choose from (I count 17 that are being used currently), with some known or suspected injuries to some of his regulars from last season:

Tyrer, Iversen, Onyango, Quirk, Kristensen? John? Hunt? Hagan? Higgins? – That's quite a list. But Darren says we can't use injuries as an excuse...

Simms must be part of the first-team set-up, at least during the current injury crisis... and possibly beyond.

We've had a series of defeats from U18, U23 & Senior (defeat at Villa), there seems to be shortages of players everywhere... from first team to reserves. Seems to me, especially with our right-back and left-back issues, no-one from Brands and the management cares.

I had not counted two consecutive 4-0 defeats of Everton women's team.

So... our "Aye, aye, captain" (management) is drunken all the time.

Michael #11, some of those like Kristensen, Hagan, Hunt we're in the squad last Friday. I think they are recognising they won't make it with us and going with the younger players in the other games though.

Given the amount of games we have coming up we will need some reinforcements though, either older like Gordon, Simms, Branthwaite or even younger like Jenson Metcalfe, Jack Tierney, Emilio Lawrence from the U18s. And hopefully Onyango will be back soon.

I think the problem is people complained about the older players getting game time and it's probably gone too far the other way now.

Up until the injury crisis in the seniors, Gordon and Branthwaite should have been playing in the U23s. First choice goalkeeper Tyrer is injured and also John, Onyango and Iversen. With them 6 in the squad, I imagine we would have won more games.

Also, reverting to this 3 at the back hasn't helped as it's hard enough for a centre--back to move to left-back but left-wingback is even more difficult.

Also, up front it seems like he doesn't know what to do with Dobbin. Central on his own, central with a partner and from the left.

I am almost certain Anderson, Quirk and Hunt will be released at the end of the season; same with Kristiensen and Hagan. Hughes and Iversen will probably get 1-year contracts and go out on loan. Same needs to happen with John and Astley as they have learned all they can at this level.

Next season we should be stronger if we persevere with the team as some of them will grow and some will benefit from the extra experience.

Thanks for those insights, Karl.

The U23s are getting a lot of stick from many fans on here, and have been since Unsworth made the 'mistake' of actually winning the competitions his teams were entered into.

The changes made and poor results so far make sure that is unlikely to happen again any time soon.

I also doubt it will magically create the rapid pathway for supposedly blocked starlets to now reach and excel in the first-team. They need to be exceptionally good players for that to happen and we don't seem to have many of them coming through.

Michael (15),

I thought that Brands would change the structure of the whole youth Acadamy but it is still much the same as when he arrived. It really should be updated with some top class coaches if they can get them to come. It doesn't seem to be working or producing any likely future stars at the moment.

Dave 16

There's always a debate about nature or nurture. Is it a matter of getting the raw talent or is it about the coaching?

I noticed that Phil Foden started training with Man City aged 4, Mount with Chelsea at 4 also, Arnold with Liverpool at 6. Do we need to get better at signing brilliant toddlers? Or are they as good as they are because they've been with those clubs since before they started infants school?

For what it's worth, jonjoe Kenny joined Everton at 7, and Tom Davies at 11. Did those few years make a difference or did they lack the innate ability of "stars"? We haven't had an actual homegrown (eg, from boyhood) successful product since Wayne Rooney almost 20 years ago.