da poker： Amid an era in which patriotism in the transfer market has become a luxury for those who can afford it, Everton’s focus on English players this summer is as brave as it is refreshing.
da doce： It may be little skin off a Sheikh nose for Manchester City to cough up £50million apiece for Raheem Sterling and John Stones, and price-tags in general may have jumped up a gear once again this summer.
But spending nearly £60million on two players in Jordan Pickford and Michael Keane is very much untrodden ground for the Toffees, evident enough through one deal setting a new club-record transfer fee, and the fact both signings are English shows a real statement of intent on Ronald Koeman’s part – one that could revolutionise a club stuck on the very edge of the ‘big six’ conversation.
Of course, English players at Goodison Park is nothing new – England’s World Cup winning 1966 side contained two Everton representatives. But the balance has skewed too far the other way in recent seasons; during the 2016/17 campaign, only seven English players aged over 21 represented the Merseysiders in the Premier League and only six English players made more than ten top flight starts.
That’s not a criticism of Everton as such, rather a symptom of what the Premier League has become – an international top flight that happens to be set in England, that has seemingly lost all allegiance it once had to the national team, that has introduced quotas which only inadvertently add to inflated price-tags for players who qualify as homegrown.
Accordingly, after a substantial investment from Farhad Moshiri last summer and ahead of a season in which he hopes to overachieve by breaking into a ferociously competitive top four, Koeman could easily follow the pattern of most managers needing the best value-for-money possible by turning to the many foreign markets that can offer quality players with lesser price-tags and comparatively cheaper wages.
But in swooping for Pickford and Keane, two of the most impressive homegrown talents in the Premier League last season, Koeman has clearly recognised the value English players that can’t always be accurately represented on a balance sheet and doesn’t always stack up when compared to foreign counterparts.
English players always have a deeper connection with the Premier League fan base, a better understanding of the kind of football they want to see, and when successfully gelled together have the potential to produce an outcome far mightier than the sum of their individual parts.
Koeman’s focus on relative locality likely stems back to his Ajax and Barcelona days, two clubs that recruited young players from their own regions, an idiosyncratic one in Barcelona’s case, taught them their way of playing, kept almost whole teams together by moving them through the age groups and soon enough reaped the benefits at first team level. Tellingly, the Dutchman worked on the coaching staff at both clubs as well.
But perhaps Tottenham Hotspur are the more pertinent example for what Everton are looking to achieve this summer. Mauricio Pochettino, who also witnessed Barcelona profiting from their focus on Catalan talent during his many years with rivals Espanyol, has transformed the club by creating a core of young, English talent – much of which, namely Danny Rose, Kyle Walker and Harry Kane, was deemed not up to standard before he arrived from Southampton in 2014.
Since then, and with a further two English additions in Eric Dier and Dele Alli, Spurs have pulled off two unexpected title bids – coming within a whisker of the crown on both occasions – and made themselves the most represented club in the England national team ahead of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, once the most prolific contributors by quite some distance.
Of course, simply buying English players doesn’t mean Everton will become the Premier League title race’s new resident dark horses in the same way as Tottenham; we’re talking about two different clubs with completely different players and coaching staff. Spurs also happened to strike oil when they paid just £5million for Alli and gave Kane a shot in the first-team because their senior strikers were enduring such poor form.
But the crucial thing is that Koeman’s at least providing a platform for young English players to attempt to replicate Spurs’ rise at Goodison Park, and it doesn’t just stop with the summer signings. Alongside Pickford and Keane, Koeman has a fantastic young rabble of academy products in his ranks, not least including the five youngsters involved in England’s U20 World Cup triumph this summer, U21 European Championship semi-finalist Mason Holgate and very much the surprise success story of last season, Tom Davies.
With star attacking duo Romelu Lukaku and Ross Barkley both expected to move on this summer, Everton fans may understandably fear their club going backwards next season. But Koeman deserves the utmost credit for including English signings in his revamp of the first-team, and those departures will provide the room needed for some of those aforementioned names, not least including Keane and Pickford, to truly thrive and potentially claim the vacated star status.
Koeman is rebuilding Everton, not only for next season but also the long-term, and young, hungry English players look set to play an important part. That’s great news for the Toffees but perhaps more importantly, the wider Premier League.
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