It truly was a weekend of mixed outcomes for Paul Tait and Keith Southern. Firstly, the Everton Under-18s took on Newcastle at Finch Farm at their regularly scheduled lunchtime slot on Saturday while Paul Tait’s Under-21 team made the long journey to the South Coast to take on Brighton at the peculiar time of 4pm on a Sunday afternoon.
Jake Doughty put the Blues ahead after 12 minutes, followed by goals from winger Charlie Stewart, Jonathan Nsangou and another from Doughty making it 4-0 after 43 minutes. Kean Wren (pictured right below) was the architect of both Doughty goals.
Newcastle pulled two goals back inside the first 20 minutes following the restart but the Toffees deserved their victory.
Southern was full of praise for his side after the result, and was hugely impressed with the first-half performance which saw them leapfrog Newcastle into 3rd place in the league table behind the two runaway Manchester clubs.
> ”They obviously scored twice in the second half, so they were probably the better side then, but our first half display was really, really terrific. I couldn’t have asked for any more.
> ”We played as well as we’ve played all season in the first half. We really were outstanding.
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> “In the second half, we had to show a different side of it. They had the better of the the second half in terms of territory and opportunities. We had to defend, and the lads, credit to them, stuck at it, defended the box, defended set pieces.”
Meanwhile the following day, the U21s, significantly without leading goalscorer Braiden Graham (18 goals cross-age and cross-competition), lined up as below against Brighton. They still had the experience of captain Reece Welch to call upon and a pair of 20 year-olds on the bench:
To be fair the Toffees held the score at 0-1 till the second half when the hugely experienced and talented over-age player Solly March (pictured below) came on to heavily assist the second half onslaught. He has 266 first team appearances for Brighton although he hasn’t been a regular since 2023 due to injuries. It’s a bit like us throwing the game know-how of Seamus Coleman onto the pitch against 17 year olds!
So Paul Tait’s team conceded in the 42nd and 59th minutes and when the 3rd went in after 86, the game was clearly over. More worrying was the capitulation in the first minute of added time when Brighton scored **two** goals inside a minute to make it an absolute rout at 0-5.
The result means that the Blues are now out of the top 16 teams who go on to a knockout phase of the campaign. They slumped to 19th having looked comfortable a few weeks ago. There are 2 games left so the maximum points they can get is 27 and the 16th (qualifying team) are currently Aston Villa on 24 points, so it _is_ still possible to progress to the knockout stage but, especially with the goal difference damage of the last result, it’s looking more likely that the season will, disappointingly, end early on April 17th.
Next up for the U21s is a must-win game away to lowly Birmingham City on April 3rd and for the U18s it’s an away game against Blackburn Rovers on April 11th.