Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas discusses the departure of Isaac Price, the academy starlet who is one of the Championship's most influential players and is breaking records for Northern Ireland
Joe Thomas is the Everton FC correspondent for the Liverpool ECHO. He follows the Blues home and away, providing match reports, analysis and insight into events at Goodison Park, Finch Farm and beyond. Joe spent more than a decade covering news on Merseyside, working on award-winning investigations and extensively covering matters related to the Hillsborough tragedy - including the recent criminal prosecutions. Always grateful for tips and feedback, he can be contacted at joe.thomas@reachplc.com and on Twitter via @joe_thomas18
Northern Ireland midfielder Isaac Price (L) celebrates with Justin Devenny after scoring during the 2026 World Cup qualifier against Germany. Photo by INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images
Northern Ireland midfielder Isaac Price (L) celebrates with Justin Devenny after scoring during the 2026 World Cup qualifier against Germany. Photo by INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images
I remember watching Isaac Price. Everton were in Australia and, while the eyes of everyone else were on the World Cup, mine were on a teenager as he dominated a midfield of grown men. He crunched into tackles and showed composure on the ball, producing a statement performance against a vastly more experienced Celtic side - one that would later track him with a view to luring him to Scotland.
“I thought Isaac Price was the best player on the pitch,” Frank Lampard later told me as we spoke in a corner of the Accor Stadium in Sydney, where a crowd in excess of 40,000 had watched Everton win on penalties after a 0-0 draw in what was billed as the Sydney Super Cup. It wasn’t an outlandish thing to say.
I spent more time than is good for me looking back to that period of late 2022 and wondering what might have been had things played out differently. Everton were on course for a crash into crisis that was probably unavoidable given the mistakes being made behind the scenes.
But I continue to question the inevitability of Lampard’s demise, at least the pace of it, anyway. Yes, the woeful Bournemouth double header had already unfolded before the trip Down Under, but that week had started with Everton going into the home game with Leicester City knowing a win would launch them into the top half of the table. A bigger warning sign than what happened at the Vitality Stadium was the ease with which the Foxes dominated the Blues that Saturday night, and the tactics deployed by Lampard pointed to a worrying naivety, but I’m not sure the situation was irredeemable at that stage.
There were a handful of sliding doors moments that, had they played out in another way, could have led to a very different season - though a future that would still have been undermined by the storm of trouble brewing behind the scenes.
One thing I am confident about is, had Lampard lasted longer, Price’s Blues career would have done so too. Lampard, a champion of youth, was a huge fan of the Everton academy starlet and I very much doubt his contract would have dwindled towards expiry without a real fight if the former England midfielder had lasted longer.
Price was open to staying with the club as he entered the final months of his deal but what he needed was a show of faith from those above him. Then 19 and requiring a stage on which to blossom, what he wanted was to feel wanted at Everton. Under Lampard, who introduced him in the Goodison hammering at Brighton the following January (the night his future did become irretrievable) that was no issue.
Under Sean Dyche, it was. That is not necessarily the fault of Dyche. He arrived at a club in chaos, one that had broken down on and off the pitch and was hurtling towards a relegation fight that would prove even more perilous than the season before.
He would dispute claims he does not often give youth a chance to shine - and would point to his support of Dwight McNeil at Burnley and Harrison Armstrong and Jarrad Branthwaite at Everton as evidence of that. But his lack of willingness to use substitutes unless completely necessary is unhelpful to providing exposure for youngsters.
In fairness, given he is often firefighting against relegation there is some context for that and he arrived at Everton with one goal in mind, and one goal only - do whatever it took to stay up. His effectiveness at bringing Abdoulaye Doucoure in from the cold proved crucial in his success on that front.
It did mean the way forward was blocked for Price, however, and while efforts were made to tie him down, there was little doubt the club’s energy was focused on other priorities at the time. His departure in search of first team football took him to Belgium that summer and was one of the many unfortunate side effects of the mess Everton got themselves into.
The temptation now, as Price flourishes at West Brom, who sit top of the Championship thanks to his influence, is to point to him as a player that got away. This weekend, he added to the heroics he has already performed for Northern Ireland with a volley against Germany, one that took the 21-year-old to 10th on the list of all-time top scorers for his country.
There is little doubt Price would be of value to the Everton squad now. David Moyes spent a summer searching for central midfielders and in an area of such little depth, this would be the perfect time for the Finch Farm-raised star to emerge as a Premier League talent. He would get the opportunities he craved and would likely flourish while surrounded by the talent Everton have accumulated in other areas. It would cost the club a lot of money to buy in the same potential.
But I’m not sure his success away from Merseyside can really be classed as a missed opportunity for either party. The reality is that, while Price’s experience at Standard Liege was up and down, he needed first team football in order to develop. Would he have got that at Everton? Almost certainly not. Under Dyche, his minutes would have been limited - again by circumstance as much as anything. The next season was spent fighting a points deduction-inspired relegation battle in which the pressure was rarely off. He would have been behind Doucoure, Idrissa Gueye, Amadou Onana and a briefly resurgent Andre Gomes and there is no evidence Dyche would have given him ‘free’ minutes to grow as a first team player.
The experience of Youssef Chermiti, whose development halted as Everton could neither afford to play him nor allow him to leave on loan, was telling, as was the amount of minutes the likes of Mackenzie Hunt and Jenson Metcalfe spent on the bench without Dyche even giving them the final seconds of games that were not even in the balance.
In an ideal world, Everton would have provided Price with far greater cause to stay at the club. But had they done so, his pathway would almost certainly have been blocked. He would be an asset to the club now, as Lampard foresaw, and I have written countless times on the frustration of what the club’s financial issues meant for some of its young starlets. Those problems, and the events they inspired, make it hard to see how he would have had the chance to grow into that player had he stayed, however.
*A version of this article first appeared in the Royal Blue newsletter, a once-a-week look behind the scenes at Everton published every Wednesday. You can explore past editions and sign up, for free, here