Everton youngsters must contribute more next season

The transfer window is closing in a week’s time and while Everton will surely make a few more signings before that deadline, several Blues youngsters will also need to contribute more to make next season successful.

Everton have added two more players so far in this window with the arrivals of Richarlison and Lucas Digne.

But even if the Blues do manage to make another couple of signings, (and let’s hope they do), there are several young players whose contributions will surely be important if Everton are to make progress next season.

Those players are Jonjo Kenny, Mason Holgate, Tom Davies and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Let’s start with defence.

Jonjo Kenny and Mason Holgate are two young defenders who had limited playing time last season.

Kenny got the chance to make his debut for Everton out of necessity due to injuries and produced some strong uncompromising displays in defence, particularly in the derby game at Anfield in December.

This coincided with a period when Everton were doing well defensively under new manager Sam Allardyce.

While this was in part because of the very defensive approach Allardyce was taking tactically, Kenny still stood out as a young right-back with real potential. He also showed he could contribute going forward too although his real strength is his no-frills, old-fashioned defending.

Holgate is a player I’ve previously argued should be getting more playing time in his favoured position of centre-back.

He’s had spells in the team over the past few seasons but the majority of the time though he’s been played as an emergency right-back due to the fact he’s quite comfortable on the ball and has shown an adventurous, attacking attitude.

But he’s really a centre-half and that’s his best position. Again, as with Kenny, when he had a chance to play regularly last season Everton were conceding few goals and Holgate produced some solid and feisty performances.

Holgate has plenty of pace and is a strong tackler. But he also has a lot of improvement to make to his game, in particular his concentration. However these are areas he can improve and so he seems worth persevering with.

In addition if Everton are to play with three at the back, Holgate might be an option to play on the right hand side of a three, given his pace and relative comfort in possession. This could also end up being a necessary solution should the Blues fail to get Yerry Mina as looks increasingly likely and Ashley Williams departs too.

Moving to midfield and we focus on Tom Davies.

Davies had a breakthrough debut season in 2016-17, when he produced some fine performances and even drew tentative comparisons with a young Bryan Robson.

His energy, work-rate and commitment, off-the-cuff passing and running from midfield were all features of some excellent contributions to the team. In particular he was outstanding in just his second start, scoring as Everton battered Manchester City 4-0 at Goodison Park that season.

But almost inevitably last term he suffered from the virus of ‘second season syndrome’.  Davies struggled to re-produce the form from his debut campaign, although he was certainly not alone in under-performing that season!

Perhaps understandably he often seemed to be trying too hard to make things happen and lost possession forcing passes or running down blind alleys with the ball. Defensively he still did quite well but wasn’t having the same impact in attack.

Again like Holgate, Davies is still young and has plenty of time to learn and improve.

But Everton will have little midfield creativity next season unless there are further signings to come. And with the injury to James MacCarthy and the possible departures of both Morgan Schneiderlin and Muhamed Besic, there might be fewer options in the middle for manager Marco Silva anyway.

So Davies has the chance to make a positive impact, especially given that lack of other creative players in the Blues midfield.

Finally moving to the Everton attack we look at Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Of all the players featured, Calvert-Lewin had the best season last time round.

Coming off the back of winning the Under-20 World Cup with England and scoring the winner in the final, the 21-year-old broke into the Everton first-team and managed 4 goals and an impressive 6 assists in the Premier League.

This was even though he was often playing up front on his own and wasn’t getting the most consistent support from more senior forwards in the squad.

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His contribution fell away somewhat in the second half of the season but he was still hard-working and willing whenever he played.

Calvert-Lewin is fast, strong, physical and a real threat in the air as well as being versatile and able to play in a wide or central position. He’s still rough around the edges for sure but there’s enough to work with to suggest he could become a fine player.

Again Everton might need him to play quite often next season if there are no new reinforcements up front and the club lose Ademola Lookman, something that also seems very possible.

On top of that Theo Walcott is very injury prone and is almost certain to miss a number of games next season.

The Blues have a good history of bringing through talented young players and this tradition needs to continue for the club to make some desperately needed progress next season.