Niels Nkounkou beginning to shine in the Championship

If he has any future in the top flight, it will be as a winger and not a full-back. I am not saying he is Gareth Bale but he certainly isn't a defender.

The lad is still young, perhaps with experience he'll learn.

Seems like Niels would benefit from a summer semester at Cole College. If Ashley could teach him to harness all that speed and be more aware of his positioning, he might yet be a Premier League defender.

If he does make the grade, then great, he can save us having to spend £7m ish on Vinagre as back-up to Mykolenko –although he really would have to make strides defensively for this to happen.

Seems sensible to have 2 or 3 players of this type on the books or out on loan from time to time because they are cheap but can make money and one or two make the grade.

If some are deemed not good enough, then £5M or £10M for the likes of Broadhead, Nkounkou, maybe Simms if he doesn't cut it. That's potentially £20M. It funds the academy and provides some extra.

I feel we keep some youth players too long; they go on loan, do well, not necessarily well enough to get in the first-team but, instead of cashing in, we loan again and again. Then the players lose the will and their peak value.

Let's Hope for a change in approach. Who knows what Thelwell could do with that?

You are spot on with us previously over-paying a lot of youngsters who were not up to par and the club did not flog them for decent fees before their release on free transfers. Matthew Pennington and Joe Williams were the cautionary tales:

A combination of Bobby Brown Shoes & Rhino over-hyping Pennington up too early and gave him an entry-level Premier League Salary before he had shown himself a dependable Football League Player. With a lack of solid track record and playing time (as well as an injury record rivalling Yerry Mina's), Football League clubs were hesitant and/or unable to take on his full salary for season-long loans. Most of the money on the last 3 seasons of his contracts were on our books despite him heading out for loans at Ipswich, Hull & Shrewsbury before his eventual release. That is not money well spent.

Joe Williams's case was a lesser horror but he left us on a free transfer to Wigan before being sold to Bristol City for £1.2M after 12 months. What Thelwell has been doing should ensure Everton getting that £1.2M instead of other clubs in the future.

Over-hyping is the theme of Unsie. I can't even remember the guy's name but there was a 21-year-old fellow a few years back who'd done nothing for the Under-23s and as his contract expired, Unsie was saying he could be anything he wanted to be but it was up to him to prove himself in that last month or so and obviously he didn't as I can't even remember his name.

Then there was Beningame – “the next first team graduate” according to Unsie. And so on and so forth with Astley, Walsh etc. People give Roberto Martinez shit over hyperbole but Unsie was way worse.

But despite him being gone we still seem to have the same issue. Joe Anderson — not the mayor — age 22, not a star for the academy, never in the first team, but given a new deal. Okay, maybe he's on peanuts and stayed to give some experience to the U21s...

Then you get Davies, Holgate etc and the minute they start a game for us, they're offered new deals paying them more than many fans make in a year. Yes of course we waste even more money on “established” players but these ridiculous deals for mediocre kids don't come cheap.

I remember reading the same hyperbole from Unsworth and it striking me as very odd – I think the kid may have even been coming back from a long-term injury so there was nothing really to base the assessment on.

I'll uncover the name if it kills me.

Another one ravaged by injuries, and destined for a stop-start career in the Championship. We reported he joined Wigan for an undisclosed fee (rather than a free transfer) in July 2019 but it was probably a lot less than the £1M we turned down from Barnsley when they wanted to make his loan deal permanent back in January 2018.

He only spent 1 year of his 3-year contract at Wigan before switching to Bristol City, where he seems to be doing okay despite hardly playing a game throughout the whole of the 2020-21 season. There are just so many young players we churn through – sad… but it's the nature of the game.

After being released in June 2020, it looks like he went on to have somewhat non-stellar spells with QPR, Carlisle Utd, Weymouth, and now Hyde Utd. It must be a hard life for many of them.

A bit harsh on McNeil, he scores a well-taken winning goal in the Premier League and is then dropped. We haven't seen enough of him to come to such conclusions.

Peter (10), does the name Feeney ring a bell? I can't remember his first name, a centre-back, I think he might have come on as a sub against Atalanta in a Europa League game at Goodison, just a thought.

We have his transfer fee down as £250k and refer it as being a "nominal development fee", but the article says it was £3M in compensation (ie, a development fee) because he was under 21.

Transfermarkt says €270k. I think I'll stop there.

As for Part 2 of your post, that would be Morgan Feeney, who is still with Carlisle Utd in League Two.

I think Michael has got it with Mampala (I was thinking it could have been another forward like Adedoyin but Mampala fits the bill) though where and when Unsworth made that comment still eludes me, but we can't all have imagined it unless Kieran has been gaslighting us for the past couple of years.

You wouldn't do that, would you, Kieran?

Haha — never.

Michael is right, it was Mampala I was thinking of.

Adedoyin was a weird one as he more seemed to hype himself. I never heard of him until he wanted to go out on loan. Wasn't it Hamilton Academical?

Thierry Small was the same. When they start further up the pitch they are usually more closely marked and don't fare so well as the element of surprise has gone.

It's great that he's getting regular game time in the Championship, he's the type of player that we need to convert into a regular squad player and not let slip. With Baines and Cole around I still think we can turn him into a decent, attacking left-back.