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Last week saw the arrival of 11 new full time scholars at the Everton Academy and they were placed under the immediate watch of new Academy Director Dean Rastrick in what is a clear shift from summers gone by. An excellent decision recently to take the Under 18s, the Under 21s and the first team together to a training camp in Scotland. Simple, but you’d have to question why it’s not been done before? Whilst I am pretty sure that they still had separate sessions, after all you’re talking about approximately 66 footballers training at the one complex, the decision may already have paid off a little.
Although David Moyes’ first team resources were stretched by the absence through injury/ World Cup/ paternity leave, it was a nice surprise to see the likes of 17 year old Malik Olayiwola (a new scholar just 12 months ago) getting a run out with the first team. That would not have happened last year at all if only for the reason that the different age groups took up training residency in different locations!
It’s undoubtedly an expensive exercise in temporarily relocating best part of 100 players and staff. On the other hand, getting the kids to feel part of the bigger picture rather than isolating by age group has to be a welcome shift. No matter what anyone thinks about David Moyes’ willingness to introduce younger players, if he has a “budding Wayne Rooney” firing them in directly in his line of vision he will have food for thought!
The new scholars themselves are pictured above (left to right as follows: Nsangou, Madueke, Okore, Wilcox, McEveley, Hutchison, Brookes, Aduda. McDermott, Pemberton, Moogan.
Positionally the newcomers are grouped below:
Goalkeeper: Ted Wilcox
Defenders: Harlow McEveley, Divine Madueke, Tom McDermott
Midfielders: Harry Brookes, Levi Okore, Rodney Aduda, Lucas Moogan, Dafi Pemberton
Forwards: Jonathan Nsangou, Kai Hutchison
It’s cropped up in discussion a few times about Everton not doing enough to recruit players off other academies, yet there are examples within this group of players moving from the likes of Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspurs and in Scotland, Dundee United. It’s also good to see some of these 16 year olds have also been at the club since they were aged 5 or so!
So what do we already know about some of them?
Harlow McEveley, whose dad Jay used to be an Everton youth team player, featured heavily as a 15 year old centre back for the FA Youth Cup team last season and, even at that age against some players 3 years older than him, he looked composed and a real prospect.
Jonathan Nsangou even made his Under 21s debut last season having featured 20 times for the Under 18s so he is no stranger at all to the set up and it would not be a surprise to see him feature in the older group again. I’ve seen a few games in which he’s featured and he’s a very confident and skilful attacking midfielder/ support striker. He’s represented England at Under 16 and Poland at Under 15 already.
Kai Hutchison is a striker that we signed from Dundee United for a fee. Capped for Scotland at Under 16 level, he had trained at first team level with “The Terrors” and will be hoping no doubt to terrorise a few Under 18 teams in England this term.
Looking back at last season’s intake, the rewards for good recruitment and nurturing of talent has already borne fruit with Olayiwola making his first appearance in a pre-season friendly last Saturday and 7 of them securing first professional deals.
As always, good luck to them all and also the management team who appear to have made a bright start!
