Everton set to lose Academy player Isaac Price

I don't know why we even bother with an Academy. We either don't produce talented players or we let them leave. It's a waste of time and money under its current form.

Disappointing if he goes or can't make it at Everton. I like this lad's eye for a quick, penetrating pass.

Colin (1),

I don't know what sort of offer we have made for Issac Price but it has been rumoured for a couple of months the lad is ambitious and wants to move on to get regular first-team games away from Everton to further his career so I doubt Everton are at fault in this case.

Real shame if true, seems a talent.

We should have got him and Mills each a loan in January, as we did for Cannon.

Really poor for us to lose yet another talented youngster. If Everton are to get out of the current malaise, it must surely be via the academy and investment in youth and potential.

I imagine we could receive a couple of million in compensation if he goes because he has represented Northern Ireland just recently, although if he moves abroad I'm not sure that applies… maybe his agent is a shrewd operator.

We should do what Brentford did and close the academy down. It's worked for them.

I think it's different if you move abroad, Dave. £££

Gordon's £45 million will keep the Academy going for a few years but I agree it needs a total revamp – although my disdain is right across the board with regards to Academy football really.

I can understand why he is not in the squad for our relegation scrap. We have no breathing space to try and blood very inexperienced players at the moment. It's not as if it is early in the season and we have Cup games to try out potential.

Players wanting to leave Everton is becoming a regular occurrence.

Well, it worked well for Thierry Small. No outings for Southampton and out on loan at Port Vale. He could have stayed at Everton and done as much.

Still, I'm sure his agents, aka his family, have sufficient experience to do the best for him.

Paul,

Last time I looked, Brentford have had to re-establish their Academy teams, I think it was a condition of getting into the Premier League.

And they maintained a B team that played outside of the Academy league system. Not sure that helps anyone, does it? Has to be an even less competitive environment.

As Tony says, Anthony Gordon's transfer fee pays for a good few years of the Academy, and arguably makes it entirely worthwhile. And its costs anyway do not count against us in the P&S sums.

Exactly, Ray

What I have seen of Price suggests he is neat and tidy on the ball with a little bit of pace and an eye for a pass. In other words, he is a standard Academy product with some potential but not yet ready to perform as a regular Premier League player.

Given our financial predicament, I am guessing we have stopped awarding 2- or 3-year contracts to Under-21 players who have yet to demonstrate they are capable of nailing down a place in the first-team squad.

John,

Yeah. I'd say Walsh and Williams seemed better prospects at the time they left. Doesn't mean Price won't go on to be a good player but if we keep 3 or 4 like him every year in hope, we end up with a bloated squad of Under-23 players as we had before with Garbutt, Pennington etc.

He could just as easily sign for another year but enjoy a loan in Belgium or wherever.

Shame to lose him before he's had a chance to show what he can do outside of youth football.

Probably no disaster if he leaves though as I agree with Kieran that he's no better than others who have found their level well below the Premier League.

As for those who question why we have an Academy, I always think that, if we cease to nurture kids from our community, then we lose all purpose and identity as a club.

Rather than scrap the Academy, I'd prefer that we invest to improve it.

For me, this is no surprise and has been on the cards since the start of the Lampard era when he had his first full season start.

There's evidence to prove, if you stay loyal at Everton as a youth player, you don't get the fair breaks, and in Isaac's time, in 3 years, he's had and with so many other Everton fringe players the outputs of Carlo, Rafa, Frank and now Sean Dyche. How many players of his era, from the starting line at U18s, will make it at Everton?

In my view, he's a footballer with a good eye, scans the pitch, great passing, passes quick, and has a bit of nark.

All views are welcome but I've watched the Central League, U21s and U23s enough over the past years to know the good Everton players.

Fair play to Isaac, if he wishes to become a first-team player, but not at Everton, for many reasons he deems it's not the right time for him, then it's no brainier for him to move on. This to me is the madness of the Academy.

A genuine good player who can't get a sniff of a first-team start, for various reasons, but has been in the Everton squad, he's faster and has better stats than most of the players starting the first-team games. I'm not sure even why he's been omitted since Frank's departure, other than what it seems to be.

But good to see Nathan Patterson in contention as that's a positive in context; let's see how far Nathan has to go to start again at kick-off time.

Liam Walsh, and Beni Baningame in recent times, for me, were footballers. But fate and fortune are no guarantee and both these players have been badly hit by major injuries. But what's done is done…

Good luck, Isaac, wherever your career takes you; you will reach your potential and it will be Everton's loss, I've no doubt. Unless Thelwell has a form book… but I'm not convinced if he has one, does his view mean anything?

I'm saying it at the base level the club has no coherent, cohesive player development programme. This is mauled by survival plans, smashed by decades of decline, and it's a mess. There's some serious reviews needed at Finch Form and I won't say the s-word as there has been no strategy at Everton

Now, it's a must-win on Saturday v Fulham.

Good luck Isaac!

UTFTs!

I know contracts are agreed for a certain time period but the last few years seem a waste as that is the time to either renew or move the player on, or at least let other clubs know of his possible availability.

I've not seen this player so can't say but if he does show so much promise, why has his contract been allowed to run so far down or have discussions been taking place for some time?

The current circumstances are probably a little different at the moment as Dyche, to my eyes, has clearly decided that it is the experienced players needed for the fight we are in. It does mean that opportunities for the likes of Garner, Patterson, Price, Mills etc are currently very limited but Simms is a good example of the problems we have bringing “young” players through.
We keep talking of this young striker, he is 22 and barely kicked a ball for us but has a total of 64 appearances with his loans. By that age and experience we should have provided enough opportunities to have made the decision of is he good enough or not and developed him into a regular contributor to the 1st team (rather than find out in this relegation fight) or moved him on and provide opportunities for the next prospect, e.g Tom Cannon.

John, to an extent that was Sean's downfall last season at Burnley, he would keep persisting with Barnes and Wood for goals, to compliment Cornet. But both Wood and Barnes did nothing last season, the Burnley fans would be screaming for Vydra and he was brought on with less than 10 minutes left.

Matej Vydra was a good player that who was never given a proper chance, starting very few matches.

Everton FC at the moment is like the stadium at Bramly Moor Dock, just a shell of a building with no substance to the inside of it, it is a place with a manager and coaches doing their level best to keep the club together with a poor squad gathered over the last few years by people not fit to run a multimillion pound company, no unison in what they are doing, it is a madhouse and unlikely to be any improvement until the club is taken over by completely different people who know what they are doing and get it operating like a proper football club should be run with everyone on the same page helping each other not hiding and covering up with no sense of obligation to the guardianship of the business and duties to the football side of the club, it really does stink to high heaven the way these self serving people have let the business and club get to this rotten state.

Surely both Price and Mills should have been on the bench in recent games instead of our usual 5 defenders.
We need to show these kids there is a path to the first team if we are going to keep them.
Dyche won't budge from his mindset of experience and defence and that will see him lose his job even if he does manage to keep us up.
If they can't get in before Holgate and Davis then they must be worse than we all think.

Paul @16. Excellent points. So difficult to tell these days without watching the players “live”. Also so difficult to tell when a player is ready to break through. For every Rooney at 16 there is a Vardy at 27 and a real mix of those between 18 to 22 who peak at different times. If I remember Simms was scoring for fun at 17 but mainly because he was the same physically as he is now. Ratcliffe suddenly looked a world beater at 23 having struggled for a few years after his debut. Onana is 21 and looks a fantastic physical specimen but has he the all round skills and mental fortitude to kick on. I also think its the ability to take advantage when given the chance. Recently Everton have seemed reluctant to commit viz: Cannon, Mills, Warrington but given their plight is that really surprising. The one we did commit to, Gordon, took advantage last year but looks like it went to his head and he has now gone backwards.
A tough old world sadly!!

John # 21. I can see the logic in Mills and Price being on the bench but can't see them getting minutes on merit.

They were both in the u21 team that just got hammered by Wolves u21s 5-0. They might have just done enough to get a League 1 or possibly Championship loan but they look about the same standard as Warrington, Dobbin or Onyango - none of whom have made a massive impression in the Third Tier.

World of difference between them and someone like Branthwaite who looked far too good for (then) u23s when he was 17. Those are the kids who make it.

Some like Lundstram and Forshaw manage to get to the Premier League after a spell lower down but really if you're going to be a First Teamer you really need to be debuting about 18 / 19 (first team or high standard loan) and getting England youth recognition too.

Despite some good stuff from Simms and Cannon recently it's still v much in the balance whether they'll make it with us.

Disgusting mis-management of assets. Not having Price locked up at the beginning of last season (18 months before contract expiry) as a potential resource on the cheap (I didn't think Price's camp was at a position to demand a high enough wages), Marcel Brands (pained me to say as a chartered member of the #MarcelBrandsBrigade: he had a lot on his plate but getting this done is part of his paycheque) left too big a hole for Kevin Thelwell to rescue the situation.

If I were Price's dad or agent, I would've advised him to do what he is about to do.

Just left such a bad taste in the mouth when there are already so much mishaps by the club.

All the club is left with is a paltry compensation of a little less than 400K.

#KenwrightOut

It feels like that, even if a young Rooney was coming through this current system, it would contrive to ruin him.

I would still prefer to leave non-performers Holgate and Davies (who have been given many many chances) out and give a seat on the bench to Price and Mills.

At least then the younger players can see there is a proper path and a chance to get into the first team squad.

DuPont (24), it took Benitez, after being at the club for three months, to get Dobbin signed on a three year contract, he couldn’t believe that Dobbin wasn’t already signed up, I think Brands knew the score on the way the club was being run but for some reason ( selfish ? ) allowed himself to become a director on the board and he never did what he came here to do, reorganise the structure of the Acadamy as well as recruiting players for the first team after Kenwright gave him that promotion (?)

Price and his handlers are doing what they think best for their player and he might be financially better off and also in a professional way, Ledson, Walsh, Lumstron ( sic) and others have the same along with Coady when he was at Liverpool, had pride in themselves were ambitious and believed they would do better playing first team football in a lower grade and move up in the future.

Jose Baxter did it at Everton, packed in rather than accept a two year contract, offered by Moyes, with a 50% reduction in his wages, Alan Stubbs had a hand in getting him back into football with Oldham Ath. worked his way up with a transfer to Sheffield Unt. but was then the author of his own misfortune by the way he lived his life.

So nothing is new at Everton, and maybe other clubs, the way they handle most young players but quite a lot are now wise to them and prefer to take a gamble on moving away and make the grade elsewhere.

Although I agree – Price should probably have been kept on a longer contract – he's miles behind where Davies was at the same age.

This is not someone in the class of Ball, Dunne, Rodwell, Gordon or even Kenny.

Each Premier League academy has a good handful of Price standard players in each age group. He has a good engine, hunts the ball well, has a bit of personality in his play… but compare him to say Curtis Jones, Adam Wharton etc at the Liverpool and he's miles behind. Same for Doyle and McAtee at Man City (both out on loan at Sheffield Utd) or Shea Charles, also of City.

I wish him all the best and, with hard work, he can have a good career but at this moment he's just not going to get first-team minutes. So I don't think this is a particularly dramatic event for the club.

Indeed hopefully he'll soon be overtaken by the very classy Jensen Metcalfe.

Always good to get your analysis, Robert @28.

I get the sentiment of wanting these players to come through, we all want that. But they have to be good enough. If someone as educated as Robert is telling me he is not of the standard Davies was at the same age, then what chance has the lad got in the bear pit given the stick Tom has taken over the seasons?

I've liked what little I've seen of him at academy level, but he'd probably get about 5 minutes before the crowd turn on him.

I agree with Dave Abrahams. As much as we crave for these players to come through and do what we all dreamed of (I still do), they should look after their careers. If that means taking a step or down to rebuild and work back up the ladder, then good on them.

I won't go into one of my repetitive rants about grass roots. But the underlying issue here is we are reaping the seeds of what we have sown at Finch Farm. A half-baked academy that doesn't produce to the standard required. These projects take years of investment.

Maybe, just maybe, we are now putting in place a system and structure that will benefit us in years to come.

But right now we are seeing the results of our academy from the past several years and clinging to hope that some of them might be good enough rather than knowing.

Our academy, just like our club, needs a reset.

Everton have ruined Tom Davies, imo, whilst they have slowly been on the road to ruining themselves.

Liverpool have also got a good kid on loan at Bolton, Robert, but they seem to run their academy differently, and will probably sell this kid for a few million, whilst Everton don't seem to have any clear knowledge of how to create pathways for either keeping a kid or knowing when to sell them?

For Everton to be great again, they should be concentrating on building the club up from the bottom, with a clear plan that involves investing massively in the 14-20 age bracket, imo!

A bit odd in the timing.

Lewis Gibson and Ryan Astley also are in the last year of their contracts. So the Club sent them out on loan where they could play and "showcase" themselves.

Nkounkou, Warrington, and Virginia have another year left, and the Club has them out there already for any club that wants to look them over. God knows who'd want Joao, but I could see Niels and Lewis getting offers.

If there was no intention to keep young Price, why not send him out for the same reason? He's on pennies of a contract, so it can't be the money.

Little I've seen of him, looks like he comes to play and can make a pass. Has some pace, too.

I don't doubt young Isaac will find a club, but I'd think his agent or parents would have looked out for him a bit more. It's not as if the Club was going to offer him any kind of money past what he's getting now.

Just coincidence the link of Standard Liege with Isaac Price and the news that their owner, 777 Partners, is looking to buy a minority stake in us?

Not the moment to leave, Isaac. Your time is coming, along with all your mates. Championship, I know, but you'll be needed.

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