25 Nov 2016 18:22:55
I'm not actively advocating this - merely posing the question: why does the club bother running an U23/ U18 setup?
Very, very few players have progressed through our academy in the past decade or two to have established long-term careers with us. I can only think of Osman and Hibbert in recent years. Hopefully, Barkley will become a consistent, long-term performer, but I can't at the moment think of any other long-term "successes".
The most gifted - like Rooney and Rodwell (he was highly regarded once! ) - soon moved on in search of success. We got reasonable fees for them, but we no longer need that sort of regular transfer income just to keep the club running.
Players like Stones, Holgate, Calvert-Lewin have been brought in from elsewhere - they haven't come through Everton's junior ranks.
In the current setup, the U23s especially don't get the competitiveness and intensity to develop. Even those we've sent on loan don't - in the main - actually get the game time at lower-league sides to learn and most eventually seem to return only to fairly quickly move away from Everton. Notwithstanding this lack of game time in the present setup, perhaps we should have a closer relationship with a lower league club that becomes, in essence, a feeder/ development team for us. I can see plenty of organisational challenges, but we surely need something better than the existing U23 arrangements.
I guess that if you can unearth a Rooney every 10 years - and hold onto him - then it's worthwhile, but that quality of player comes along much less often that that!
As I said, I'm not advocating the removal of our U23/ U18 setup - I'm just asking for other posters' opinions and suggestions.
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1.) 25 Nov 2016
25 Nov 2016 20:11:05
Sid
I believe we will still require the transfer revenue from youngsters making the grade as our new major shareholder is a businessman and shouldn't be regarded as a fairy godmother.
If he removes our debt and funds a new stadium as well as providing funds for the transfer kitty, eventually he will want at the very least to be repaid.
Whilst I appreciate television money has enabled the Football League to pay huge amounts of money to clubs, it will take a substantial amount to finance the club's projected aspirations.
I acknowledge it costs to run the youth and academies, but I'm fairly certain it has proved financially cost effective. Therefore, we will very much need the next 'Rooney' to either meet the first teams squad needs or to generate the funds, we have achieved through past sales of youth players, to help the financial cause.

2.) 25 Nov 2016
25 Nov 2016 20:40:02
Fancy Smith: you make some interesting points. I'd be intrigued as to what other posters' opinions are.