Aled Thomas is the latest Academy prospect to sign up

This looks like nothing has changed at Everton except we have a lot more expense at senior level with all these inactive executives. Had Billy returned,

Not, I hope, waking the dead, Sean, or we'll have another Kenwright thread on the go before you know it.

So Neal William Maupay, perhaps? No, not his middle name?

Bilyaletdinov is too long in the tooth by now, surely.

No, I'm drawing a blank.

I don't think we've recruited more. I don't know if the new structure costs more than the previous one.

Denise Barrett-Baxendale replaced by a new CEO. Chairman for Chairman, a straight swap, the new one being our owner. I would imagine he will take the dividends of his investment elsewhere than taking a direct salary.

Sharp and other board members replaced. Thelwell and his team being replaced by the new recruitment structure. Again, it just looks different.

Seems to me, they've restructured. If anything, streamlined it a bit, or just made it more efficient and effective. I can't remember the name, but didn't we take in an investor too, who I don't think takes a salary. Someone can correct me.

I won't claim to know if it costs more or less. It's just been restructured from what I can see.

Now to get it right on the pitch.

Hopefully, Aled will prove to be our second-string left-back PDQ and ditto for Roman Dixon on the right side.

Rant over.

I was just thinking myself it must be between him and Elijah Campbell as our back-up to Mykolenko at the moment.

It's great signing all these young lads on, but it's senior players we're short of.

Look at our only signing so far: Alcaraz. Now I know his arrival in February wasn't done by the recent recruits but we needed to get a special dispensation from the Pope to get him in on loan and again it took an age to get it over the line recently.

With this committee in place, we won't be able to buy a bag of crisps as they will be arguing over which flavour. The delay in getting the Barry deal done is just typical Everton. We wait and wait and dither. How many times have we seen this before?

I genuinely fear for us this season if this is to continue.

Behind the scenes activities developing young talent, not front page tabloid speculation on past it players, is where we need to focus our attention.

A big worry is the fact they can only sign such short deals, past players have left in search of a quick big buck, joining the likes of Man City and Chelsea (in all fairness, you can't blame them) but we need to make the academy work for us.

Other teams can do it because their academies have been producing players of a standard that can step up. Even then, you are talking ones or twos, maybe three who are regulars.

We simply haven't been doing that for years. And it does take years to produce talent from academies who make it to the first team.

Everton could not throw up to 4 academy players in the first team. Hopefully the foundations laid by Thelwell and the new regime will rectify that in the next couple of seasons.

Right now? There is probably only Dixon and Armstrong. But even they will likely be involved with the squad and not starting. In time, the 17 year old Northern Irish Braiden Graham has caught the eye and could feature, but not just yet.

We need to make more out of the academy. Not just for our own first team squad, but for resale value.

That last sentence seems callous, but it is a harsh reality. I think Anthony Gordon is the best we've done in recent years and that was after a few seasons featuring in Everton's first team.

Essentially, if it was a school report, "must do better".

We’ve had two issues lately, one is that we’ve been fighting for survival and managers are much more reluctant to use young players in that situation. The other is that Moyes has always preferred older, more experienced players.

I’d love us to be the club that produces and picks up youngsters and gives them the opportunity, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. We wouldn’t even play Patterson for a run of games at the end of the season and went for Young and Coleman instead. He’s 23 and even if Moyes doesn’t rate him that highly, the run of games would have helped his confidence and us to sell him.

Dixon, Campbell, Reece Welch, Jenson Metcalfe and any of the others are very unlikely to get games under Moyes next season. Hopefully they’ll get games on loan in the Championship or another European top division.

I forgot about Reece Welch. Only one game, but he did stand out in the 2nd test event.

If we go down the loan route, I personally would prefer the continent for the different experience. It certainly benefitted Branthwaite, although he was a bit more ready made anyway.

I also forgot Antonee Robinson. He did well at Fulham and is now subject to speculation about a move to Tottenham.

Moyes and his predecessors do not overlook players in the academy because they don't trust youth. They do it because the players in the academy aren't very good.

Firstly, what looks to be our new signing Thierno Barry, spent time with Beveren in the Belgium second tier before his move to the Swiss league with Basel and then Villarreal.

Secondly, you've heard me say it enough and I agree with you. If the academy players were good enough, they would feature.