U23s go behind after fine strike by Ellis Simms

I got it eventually courtesy of an Everton fan, Derby equalised and we then copied the first team and went to pieces, offered hardly any resistance, gave them a soft penalty and a lot of them looked like they'd been given their P45s at half time. It finished 4-1 to Derby, Everton U23s' first league defeat of the season.

I feel the malaise that the senior team is experiencing is permeating the whole club. The women lost the other day and now the previously unbeaten Under-23 side have taken a hiding from Derby. Desperate times for Evertonians.

A young group of players lostxnjjuxxxx56xxc/p>

It can be a good learning experience as long as it's used positively to put the learnings into practice.

In the main it's a young u23 team, teenagers playing with and against young professionals. They've been successful and Unsworth has proven himself capable at this level.

The hardest bit is turning them into Premier League ready players, fulfilling their potential. In all honestly, most won't make it. But loans to Championship or other good European leagues can help the boys become men and go on from their.

Most of the truly world-class players show their ability by the time their 21. But it's still often the case other top-class players develop a few years later. I'm always surprised Everton fans write off our players so quickly but just as surprised they are not loaned out or played more often at the crucial years of development between 20 and 23.

We have got a lot better at this and I'd expect over the next 5 years more homegrown players to feature. But I acknowledge it's hard to keep a 22-year-old happy whilst on loan, they want a bit of stability and comfort to settle down.

Until the sale of Rooney, I never paid attention to our youth teams but can anyone tell me what the monetary value has been in the last few years by way of youth sales?

The clubs is in a slump, but if ever the time for character, guts and back bone, it's now. Starting in a few hours time at GP, v West Ham.

Does the first team have these in abundance, we shall see.

Justine @3

I listened to a Radio 4 programme about football last week. Tor Andre Flo was interviewed. He is in charge of Chelsea's Loan Programme checking every week on the shed load of young players of different ages and experience that Chelsea have out on loan. A very professionally run outfit who use the loan system to their advantage. Just like us🤦🏻‍♂️

Don 4...
£17 million in the last 5 years (since 2014)

£15million Barkley
£0.5million Chris Long
£1.5million Shane Duffy

Plus a few undisclosed such as Lundstrom, Matthew Kennedy and Hallam Hope

If you go back a couple of years before 2014,

Anichebe £6million
Rodwell £12million
Boswell and Forshaw undisclosed.

£35million in the last 7 years. I think it's estimated to cost £5-£6million a year to run the youth setup so we're either breaking even or running at a small loss.

Here's hoping that Antony Gordon has not picked up a significant injury. I hoped he might have been part of the first team squad against West Ham - if Silva would have put him on the bench it might have gone a small way to get the fans talking positively before kick-off. But no.

I also see that there are newspaper rumours about Lewis Gibson hankering for a return to Newcastle. No idea if there's any truth in it, but seeing how the Longstaff brothers have been trusted by Steve Bruce, while Silva loans out - or sells - or refuses to play any of our homegrown young players, you could see how such a situation could be real.

Few more than that recently Kevin, ledson, Walsh, Robinson, browning. Approx 5m there.

Go back further and you will probably find that the sales from younger players kept “Pauper Bill” with just enough electricity to keep running his train-set.

Kevin, I think you're missing a few there as well. Joe Williams, Antonee Robinson, Gethin Jones, Nathan Holland, Liam Walsh and Tyias Browning all commanded some kind of fee, I think.

It was a shame that Gordon went off so early, he was causing Derby problems and it's good to see him regularly paired with Simms as they complement each other with their different styles and skills. It was a super run and finish from Simms nothing new there as we've seen him do it so often, but you can see the improvements in his game that Unsworth has worked on with him, his hold up play is much better now and at last he's getting onto the end of crosses and putting in headers.

Also good to see Mackenzie Hunt making his debut at this level, he was overshadowed a bit in last year's u18s by Iversen and Carroll but he's a talented midfielder, so it will be interesting to see if he gets more game time ahead of them two.

Brent (15),Yes Brent he looks an excellent propect, so much so that clubs from abroad as well as in England are casting envious eyes at him and the worrying thing is he hasn't signed a professional contract with the Blues, due mainly because he isn't eighteen until early January, the lad is from Stoke so maybe hasn't a real affinity to our club, so until he signs it is just wait and see. There are also signs that Lewis Gibson might move in January, his contract is up at the end of the season so we would lose out on another potential very good player, although in his case we would make a profit on what we paid for him. In Dobbins case we would recieve compensation, not sure how much seeing as we have only held his contract for a very short time.

Keiran (16), yes quite a few young players in the U18's but they are looking okay in the couple of times I've seen them, don't when they start their cup run in the FA youth cup.