• Very aggressive
• One for the future?

• Perhaps a tad too aggressive!
• Very little first-team experience

"One for the future" says Howard Kendall, explaining why McKay played no part in Everton's survival struggle. Matt McKay broke through into Chester City's first team this month and has played just three first team games.  This season he scored a hat-full of goals for their youth team and a few for the reserves too. 

Kendall signed Matt McKay "in the face of strong interest from other teams."  He has signed a five-year deal and went straight into a Reserves match against Aston Villa.   With Chester City going through severe financial problems, cynical Evertonians cannot help wondering if paying such a high price for an unproven prospect is simply a charitable contribution being directed toward ex-Evertonian Kevin Ratcliffe in the Deva hot-seat. 

During the 1998-99 season, Matt McKay was virtually invisible, with just one full appearance in the Reserves.  He has spent most of his time in the Everton's Youth Academy Under-19 team, despite being listed in the first-team squad.  Even that listing quietly disappeared from the Matchday Programme by April 1999, although he did return to the list for the 1999-2000 season.  

However, his chances of making that elusive first-team debut under Walter Smith were slim in the extreme, and he again slipped off the back of the Everton Programme by February 2000.  So another season passed by with him still playing mainly in the Under-19s...

Signs at the start of the 2000-01 season were just as ominous, when McKay's name was left off the list of Premiership Squad Numbers...  Steady if anonymous appearances for the reserves throughout another unproductive season left McKay's career in limbo.

Matt McKay, out injured for most of the 2001-02 season, was forced to retire from football at the age of only 21.  McKay joined Everton from Chester for £500k four years earlier, but failed to make an appearance for the first team.