Emilio Lawrence: another one that got away?

It's a role reversal from a few years back when we signed the likes of George Green, Garbutt, Lewis Gibson etc.

If he has real talent, he could look at the pathway at City as appealing. Foden just turned 22 and has already won 9 major honors (excluding charity shields). Ellis Simms is 6 months younger, Joe Anderson the same age as Foden and we are talking about their "pathway" which right now involves being nowhere near the first team. Now obviously they are not talents by Foden but has the Everton academy become a long-term nursery for mediocre talents? As opposed to a place where real talent can flourish and get an opportunity? Do we just have no real talent? Or would the likes of Dowell, Kenny, and co. who were best in class at 17/18 have improved exponentially at a club like City rather than falling to the level of their other team mates who are the proverbial championship at best stock?

I found a fair bit of info from a thread on a Man City forum site:

Emilio Lawrence

I think you'd find the entire thread (all 16 pages!) very interesting reading, especially what these City folk have to say about the Everton scouts and their apparent philosophy.

Of course this is all in the past and says nothing about how they operate going forward, now that the Strategic Review has swept the place clean. But reading this, I'm mindful of that case where Everton drew an Under-17 transfer ban for flouting the rules when it comes to Academy level enticements.

Lots of drama and intrigue...

The route to first team football must be much quicker and easier with us rather than a club like city where he will be trying to displace world class players and other top quality youngsters. How many other talented British youngsters have gone where the grass is greener only to disappear for years and then pop up in league 1 or 2 at age 24 or 25?

I hope for his sake he has made the correct decision, with the state of our playing staff he could've been in the first team squad next season if he's that talented.

I love this quote from that City thread:

"A few years ago I had my youngest lads team u7 at the time playing in a tournament at Curzon Ashton, the place was crawling with Everton scouts in all their Everton gear, you couldn't miss them and when they liked the look of a boy the 1st question they would ask was who the parents were, not because they wanted to speak to them, but so they could see the physical build of the parents and they would then get an idea what the son was going to be like. I found this a strange way to do things but hey ho they're the pros"

One question: how do Everton know whether a kid is adopted? in foster care? takes growth hormones? or that his Mum didn't have a ding-dong with the milkman?

The administration, the management appears so amateur in so many ways.

Perhaps Lawrence was always destined to leave. But it’s interesting that the stand out prospects (including Thierry Small) just don’t see Everton as a worthy place to spend the most important of their formative years.

And it would appear that we’re not terribly attractive to our transfer targets unless we wave £120K+ a week at them

We’re lucky we attracted Frank but unless we support him he’ll be off

Given our financial woes it’s not much of an exaggeration to suggest he saved our club last season by avoiding relegation

The disloyalty gets worse every year and for anyone who is no longer a part of the Everton family, I hope I never hear of them again. They can get lost.

In this case, I can understand the preference to return to man cty, so 2 fingers up and bring in the next in line. I hope we are due some compensation and quickly moved on

Started out with ManCity youth of ManCity supporting parents. Hits 16 years with the first major club decision of whatever his football future holds. Hardly a surprise which club Emilio and his parents picked.

At 16 he looks a prospect. So did James Vaughn. No one knows what Emilio's future will be.

I don't agree that we should get rid of the academies. But I think they should be restructured significantly. No teams and no entry below the age of 14 at least. You could stretch that to 16.

Have the clubs' coaches and scouts go out into the local football network and assist at grass roots. Leave youngsters in their natural environments but help development outside of the bubble. Even sponsor a number of local teams.

Admirable as their charitable work is, I would like to see some of Everton in the Community's effort put into that type of initiative. We are a football club. Support local football for mutual benefit.

I know, scratched record from me, but I don't like this "been at Everton since 7" stuff. On one hand, manipulation of young players' dreams at a very young age. Arguably and more significantly, those of their parents and the demands on the youngsters that come with that.

My view is we should invest more in nurturing more of this sort of talent. Some will leave, but if we nurture them well and become known for giving them a route to the first team then we'll do well out of it. Indeed if we do genuinely get known for blooding youngsters then we'll attract talent from City and others too.

Barca didn't scrap La Masia because Man Utd and Arsenal pinched Pique and Fabregas.

The departure of Lawrence looks, a bit like Small last year, certainly unfortunate but circumstantial too.

Hopefully talents like Samuels-Smith, Metcalfe and Okoronkwo (who we pinched from Sunderland) will be knocking on the door of the first team soon.

At one point it went down a Rooney rabbit hole, but that was brief and short-lived thankfully.

Some interesting views and perspectives.

How proactive Everton are in Manchester. I hope we are as proactive in Merseyside. I would say other areas, but I understand that with players under a certain age, there is a mile limit on how far away from home they can be to play in an elite academy?

Some reiterate how City's focus seems to be to poach older academy players when others have done the work. This isn't uncommon, but I just wonder if that goes back to my point about not really being interested in having players until they are at least 14? Some of the City fans seem to complain about it but I actually think it's a good strategy.

If true, I cringe at the "Everton scouts in all the gear" comment. Who's ego is that scratching as opposed to the more discrete Manchester United scout who it only became apparent he was a scout when he pulled his badge. Classy. Stand in the shadows and make your observations, rather than the "look who I am" approach.

I always like to get observations from other fans. The one that stood out was the comment about Everton doing well at U18s & U23s but in the main, producing League 1 & League 2 standard players. Sadly, I find it difficult to argue with that.

This may turn out to be a disappointment. It may turn out to be nothing. At 16 who knows how it turns out for him and any other player? Either way, good luck to the kid.

I’ve only seen the lad three or four times and he has got a lot of potential ability but for this report to say how many clubs were after him is based on just one fan, a City fan?

I lose more and more faith in professional football day after day. And don't give me any crap about realism and practicalities. We may just as well hand the lot over to Murdoch and the ESL.

Maybe we already have.

Academy U23s Career

Academy U18s Career

Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me. As soon as we have lost Small to Southampton, more drastic measures should have been done with other "High Ceiling" prospects (Lawrence included in that group, of course) in the academy, and then Moshiri brought in Rafa with the Kenwright Entourage lurking around to compromise Brands. The rest is now history.

Nothing we can do now other than learning the lessons and hoping Thelwell & Co. are not wasting any time to do what is necessary with the Academy & the Pipeline to the First Team (I hate the word "Pathway": it sounds so slow and carries none of the meticulousness required in talent assessment).

Quick tangent: Southampton is turning the tables around by signing all these young guns between 17 and 19 from the Big Six, offering them immediate First Team Football on Premiership Level with a view to sell them off for Multiple Times of Profits when they reach their early 20s.

Re your stats, I'm pretty sure I saw him score a goal at U18 in the 20-21 season, it was a spectacular move with Dixon combining with Ebere, Dixon running the length of the pitch and Lawrence finishing it off. Was hoping it would be shown time and time again when all 3 made the first team 😀.

Lots of social media coverage of him as a “Scottish wonderkid” from people doing a quick Google and seeing he played once for Scotland U17. It does seem to me though that few people have actually seen him perform for 90 mins.

Of the two, I'm more relieved that we've managed to retain Ishe Samuels-Smith, someone I have watched 6 or 7 times in full games, including 3 for England U16, so have a better knowledge of him. Good luck to Lawrence, I hope he reaches his potential, who knows we could get him back at 19/20-ish.

I think it proves that although Emilio is a very good potential footballer the report from the article, from a Mam City website, was well over the top.

Nevertheless good luck to the lad in his future career with City, again like with Small going to Southampton I think it was out of Everton's hands. They obviously offered the lad good terms but couldn't compete with City's standing at the moment, well for the next few years being honest.

It's only going to be a few years right?!

Yes, I wrote that sentence in the hope that we will turn it round but you have to be honest with yourself. Today, two weeks before the season starts, it's very hard to be optimistic. Then again, let's see how the transfer window transpires.

It's also absolutely impossible to give up on Everton FC, never even tried to myself.

Putting the 27 stuff aside, I'm already getting enthusiastic, which is drawing shaking heads from my brother and son as well as concerned looks from the dogs.

Not to mention a stern look from the better half!

I think it's the pathway for us to get back to the top, fans would get behind youngsters and obviously they're cheap and more you do it, more youngsters will want to come here which means more quality that youngsters will become.

We should try and have it so we always have 5 or 6 “homegrown” academy boys in match-day squads and give them a chance of playing.

I won't go on too much about the German system Peter as I have done so many times. But they get it right from grass roots. Their international trophy count tells you the difference between them and England without even having to look into the detail.

Using the club I follow as an example (Schalke), they relied too much on the academy. Their academy was so good that the hawks circled and took the players away. Yes, at initial profit to the club. But that became their business model rather than transfers. They eventually got caught with their pants down and relegated. Fortunately they've come straight back up at the first time of asking and hopefully learned a lesson.

We've almost done the opposite with reckless spending.

It has to be a balancing of blooding young potential alongside sensible external transfer dealings and bringing in experienced players.

I'm probably stating the obvious to many.

Interesting that the usual cadre of Academy bashers have largely refrained from their formulaic condemnation. It just shows to me that, if you can find out a little more of the truth about things, they are never as clear-cut as the headlines want to make them.

My take is, it was a fluke that the kid was with us and not with Man City, and that he has now returned 'home'. Just one of those things. We've been on the other side of it a-plenty, so swings and roundabouts.

As for that goal, Phill, I think it was at Link, after he and Ebere had come on as subs –his first at that level. But I can't find any video of it.

Ooops I see the problem now. My column headings @ 22 switched around – apologies, Phill!

I do think the coaching at Finch Farm could have been better. I do think there should be better connection between the club and the local teams that play, week-in & week-out. We don't seem to have had an end-to-end system.

Rather than vacuum 7-year-olds up into the closet bubble, why not invest in the facilities and help local teams with coaching whilst keeping an eye on players with potential?

Apologies, I'm probably too much of a purist and Romanist when it comes to youth coaching. But I speak from experience.

Yes, Samuels-Smith has decided to stay and his younger brother has also joined the club, or maybe he was already here and I've just heard about him in the last few weeks.

Okay, got it. Quintyne / Dixon blocks the ball in his own box, it's Ebere who cuts inside and clips the pass out back to Dixon who takes it to the line, cuts it back for Lawrence who controls with his right, scores with his left. One of the best Everton youth goals since Rooney!

The sheer speed of the move from transition, the superb execution in the box... no wonder it's such a blur... I haven't seen that kind of stuff in ages.

I was surprised he didn't get more games last season at U18, maybe injury, but he was one of the standouts for our U16s, scoring 4 goals against Liverpool in one match. (Does it get any better than that?). There's a Germany connection as well, but I'm not clear about it.

Although he was quite deep when involved in that goal, he's primarily an attacker and a big, strong player. Ebere, Sherif and Beaumont- Clark should provide a potent attacking force this season.

With him going to City, and their ability to churn out talent on a consistent basis, this could be a win for the player and for us. If he develops well, City have a habit of selling off their youth players for ridiculously high prices. I believe that we are entitled to development reimbursement due to his time here at the club. This could be a decent chunk if he continues his development.

The lad was training at both City and Everton until given an ultimatum by City to choose, when he was 7/8.

Dad didn't like City's bullying tactics with such young kids and has continually called out their methods on the 'circuit' ever since.

Big surprise he has gone back there amongst peers. But Man City offer all 2nd year scholars a pro contract and this kid is on £10k a week. Everton could not compete and the lad did not sign 2-year scholarship forms initially, just 1 year with Everton. Dad has always insisted that the lad has control of his own destiny and, given his talents, has held all the aces.