“Everton will always hold a special place in my heart”

I always thought there was some reluctance behind his time playing for us in the Academy teams, and he couldn't leave soon enough but this fine interview for Everton's Matchday Programme puts right a lot of misconceptions about Eric Dier and what was clearly a very special formative period for him as a player.

TL:DR? Well, just read it anyway!

We lost 2 central defenders from our academy at around the same time – Eric Dier and Shkodran Mustafi, who went on to have decent careers at Spurs and Arsenal respectively. They were not world beaters, but would have saved us or earned us some useful money if they had signed on for us.

We didn't see enough of him. I think one appearance?

He went onto win trophies with Tottenham. In hindsight, I always look back with disappointment that we didn't keep hold of him. Now on loan at Bayern. He's had a good run.

Another one we missed the boat on was Mustafi.

A couple of FA Cup winner medals and a World Cup winners one as part of the Germany squad.

I know it's difficult to read with young players and some just don't settle.

It does make me wonder why some talented players don't get much of a chance but yet Tom Davies was given 6 years. Before the Davies fans have a go, it's not a jibe at Tom himself.

Often portrayed by some ToffeeWebbers as one we wrongly opted to let go... seems not to have been the case after all.

I know you aren't having a go at Davies. Not your style.

Like many young players at Everton in recent years, he was trying to develop in a volatile club.

Of course he got stick at times as do most players. I will dish it out for individual performances but try to look at the bigger picture.

I just hope we hang onto Branthwaite.

‘It wasn't nice'… England international admits he found his time at Everton very ‘tough'

More proof, if any was needed, that the site has to be run by Kopites. There, that's me fully on board now with this conspiracy theory! Next!!!

Maybe throughout this whole Commission debacle they could have done better, but they have commended themselves well in the way they have conducted themselves throughout.

I so want to be wrong, but we will have to sell.

Joe, sadly it won't be the first time.

Alan Ball saying he was shocked. Harry Catterick saying Alan Ball's best days at Everton were done.

For his admirers, the way in which Duncan Ferguson was sold depending on which version is to be believed.

There are probably others.

In other news, I was reading that Kevin Campbell is ill.

Where I found the real reason why we had mixed memories of him:

In September 2015, he would attract the ire of Evertonians with a dubious scissors tackle on Tim Cleverley in the Premier League game at White Hart Lane that went unpunished but would put Everton's new signing out of the game for the next 3 months.

Dier never made a senior appearance for Everton in any shape or form.

We never 'lost' him from the academy as he was never our player to begin with. He was on loan from Sporting in order to aid his development and, clearly, elected to go back to them after his couple of years with us.

Please can we hear no more on the latter, it is one of the weirdest views that persists on TW.

“Yeah he went on to win trophies at Tottenham.”

Which trophies were they? They haven't won a pot for years and only won the league twice in their entire history.