The Young Ones — Part 1

I really enjoy your reports on the younger teams Phill - please continue!!

No stand-out stars like Barkley but lots of very able players who look like they have enough for the first-team squad. You've named a few more who fit into that category.

And has it all gone quiet on Okoronwo or is that just a formality now?

Robert, like with Thierry Small, Francis Okoronwo is simply waiting to turn 17, then he will formally be transferred to Everton. Small is likely to join Aston Villa on 1st August when he turns 17.

Looking forward to seeing him and Lawrence this season in the streamed u18 games - and Kouyate too.

Maybe one or two more signings for the academy too, like Jagne last season.

As for Small, it's tragic that we have a genuine talent who could go all the way to the top. Certainly our biggest talent since Barkley and maybe since Rooney. His gripes about first team pathway sound like a load of rubbish. What other club has a clearer pathway for a left back than Small? We have Digne, Godfrey, and Nkounkou ahead of him. Godfrey will naturally move out of his way as he is a centre back and will want to play there. Then it's a straight fight with Nkounkou to be backup to Digne. Digne has had a few injuries recently, he is 28 years old, and I would fancy my chances if I was Small of getting ahead of Nkounkou and getting actual games over the next three years. Instead he seems to want to be left back number 5 at Man Utd or left back number 4 at Arsenal. Even at Villa he's not going to get closer to the first team. If he wasn't being a spoilt brat, he could have still delayed signing the contract, gone on our pre-season and played actual games and then seen how the land lies as the season approaches properly.

The lad has sacked his agent, presumably for advising him to stay at Everton, and I can only guess he has uncle Bryan (Bryan Small the Villa defender) and the rest of his Birmingham based family, in his ear telling him to come "home" and be a "villa legend" or something like that. However, it's probably something else behind the scenes for all I know. It just does not cast Everton in a good light, and we will get very little in compensation for him.

Petulant or not, he's only a 16 year old kid, so I will still wish him all the best when he does leave.

As you say he's tall for a winger but he's been described as a striker too so maybe he's just big, skilful and fast and so can play anywhere across the forward line at youth level anyway.

With Small, we pinched him from WBA, and Villa are pinching him from us. It's a shame but this is the game we're in, with teenagers being shipped about like commodities. I don't really like it. Sad really that Sunderland have lost 3 talents now in Hugill, Mumba and Okoronkwo - all of whom are probably delaying their chances of first team football by moving to a bigger club. But just part of the game now.

He's handled it badly, but I don't blame Small for leaving a club in such turmoil. Especially since he's returning to home of sorts.

As for Thierry Small, who knows what his motivation is for leaving the club, but it'll be interesting to see where he ends up if he does go. From what I have seen, he's a promising young player, but a long way short of the sort of superstar that some are making him out to be. He's a bit too "head down and charge" for me – and it'll be interesting to see how he does when he starts playing against players who he does not have a significant pace and strength advantage over.

You yourself say the claims from his camp that he wants a pathway to the first team have a hollow ring to them given who is currently 'in front' of him at Everton compared to other likely suitors. I agree with you.

Robert, I think linking the high turnover of Everton's first-team managers to Thierry Small is a redundant one.

After joining Everton Small was 11- to 12-years-old under Koeman, Unsworth and Allardyce. 13- to 15-years-old under Silva and Ferguson. 15- to 16-years old under Ancelotti (who made him Everton's youngest ever 1st team player when subbing him on in an FA Cup game). Small and Benitez's paths have never crossed at Finch Farm.

Anyone who has taken the time to watch him play for the academy sides would fairly conclude he is a long way from being a starter, or even a squad player, for the first team.

A good number who do watch such games write of the same deficiencies in Thierry's game, primarily on his 'day job' – defending.

Sorry to see him leave, but that is his choice. I don't see this as a 'failing' in any way by the club.

Some you win. Some you lose. That's the roll of the dice with young players.

Dylan Graham seems to have flown in right under my radar. He already has pages at Transmarkt and Soccerbase – both sites seem to be getting a lot better at tracking our youngsters.

The piece I found says he signed a 3-year deal with Everton... but he's only 16. So that can't be a full professional contract, I assume?

His birthday was 31 October 2004 so he's got a few months yet until he is 17. I'm just puzzled at the nature of his contract and how it can be for 3 years. Is it really a 3-year scholarship, perhaps?

As to whether he's any good, we'll see in the next year or two. He's raw and Andrew's description is apt but he stands out for end product and is the archetypal modern full-back (whether you buy into that concept or not). He certainly looked a likely first teamer before too long - possibly higher up the pitch to start off with before maturing into a full back.

As always, way too early to know how many (if any) of these lads will come through.

But if someone is telling me we have a potential Peter Beardsley on our hands, then that has my attention!!

Thanks again Phil.

Nothing malicious. Nothing dismissive of his talents or potential. Just balanced comments by respected TWers who take a keen interest in the academy. Nothing like the rage of match day threads or the live forum.

He's good. But there were many individual performances that outshone Thierry in pretty much every game that was available to view.

It is notoriously difficult to gauge just how good a player may be at this age. Unless your name is Wayne Rooney who was evidently destined for greater things and ready for senior football at an even younger age than Thierry is now.

Thierry has yet to show he is in that sort of category IMO.

I think a lot of us, myself included, don't always see what the real scouts are looking for. Small definitely has it. He's up there with anything in the u18s age bracket in British football. That's not my judgement, it's the judgement of the England set up and scouts across Europe.

Interesting you say that Robert, Kyle John has always played right wing until about 12 months ago! I was impressed with how much better he played at full back, but that was usually in games where he was racing forwards from deep and using his pace as opposed to his acceleration.

Interesting to read Unsworth has now released that there is a rotation of coaching in the academy setup. They have implemented one style of play. On top of this the coaches will rotate in and out of the u23s, presumably so Unsworth can improve them and get them on the same page as him? That's the way I read it anyway.

Here's an article on the subject if you are interested: Link

With all the chat on our financial problems, the lack of *decent* transfer activity to date (as in exciting) then the reliance on youngsters breaking through and providing us some potential excitement only gets greater so will be interesting to see if Mr Small does move on or whether he stays and is given a chance by the club to step up into the 1st team this year.

In addition we rarely sell a youth player for a fee. If we do it's minimal. None of our Academy players under the present coaching staff have ever gone to make us rue their departure either.

I genuinely take no pleasure at all in pointing out the obvious but I'm really perplexed by how many of us, us fans that is, seem perennially unwilling to point the finger of responsibility for our treadmill history of mediocrity, at best, for well over 30 years, at the owner, chairman and boardroom we've been cursed by.

Musing on the likes of Thierry Small is music to the ears of those complacent, failing shysters in the Liver Building. They see us as soaks, probably willing to accept for decades any old crap whilst they contrive to enrich themselves, and themselves alone, with minimal personal investment.