Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas discusses the importance of the club's academy and how the success of someone like Anthony Gordon should help its reputation
Anthony Gordon embraces Kieran Trippier following the Premier League match between Fulham and Newcastle United at Craven Cottage. Photo by Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images
Anthony Gordon embraces Kieran Trippier following the Premier League match between Fulham and Newcastle United at Craven Cottage. Photo by Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images
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Anthony Gordon’s impending move to Barcelona should be celebrated for reasons beyond the money it will generate for Everton.
The La Liga champions have agreed a £69m deal for the Blues academy graduate - a fee that will send at least £3.6m back to Merseyside courtesy of the sell-on clause signed when he left the club.
That may have been in difficult circumstances for everyone and the vigour of his celebrations when a victor over his old side with Newcastle United, plus his links to a move to Liverpool, have done little to improve his reputation in the years since. His rise to one of the biggest clubs in the world is still good news for Everton, though.
Gordon’s progress highlights the value of the club’s academy and its resilience even under the stress of the financial and regulatory chaos Everton have endured across recent years. The Kirkdale winger broke through before that unfolded but was a key part in the Blues’ survival through that period. His match winner at Goodison Park against Manchester United was one of several important contributions as he helped Everton avoid relegation under Frank Lampard. Without his £40m sale to the north east six months later, the regulatory pain inflicted on the Blues would have been even more severe.
Everton’s academy has not been in the best of places over recent years and has been one of several areas that has suffered as a result of the club’s traumatic experience through the final years of Farhad Moshiri’s reign. That saw some of the brightest talents depart as part of cash-raising and PSR-helping tactics, including England youth international Ishe Samuels-Smith.
Other rising stars were given less patience to develop than they perhaps would in better circumstances, with forwards Tom Cannon, Ellis Simms and Nathan Broadhurst sold while Isaac Price fairly believed better opportunities lay elsewhere as the first team fought for survival. All four have since established themselves in the Championship and may yet progress further.
Yet despite that, some talent has still risen through the ranks. Gordon’s path has, most notably, been followed by Harrison Armstrong. The teenager has emerged as one of England’s most promising midfielders and his composure and intelligence helped to change the dynamics of the game in Everton’s favour when he came on at Tottenham Hotspur last week, in the same stadium that he made his first team debut the season before.
The standout progress of the likes of Gordon and Armstrong shows the ability of the academy to raise talent even under severe stress and now times are better it is essential the club works to strengthen its youth system. For all the need to improve the first XI and the desire of David Moyes to do so in this summer’s transfer market, the key to real sustainable progress is the production of players who can grow through the club and supplement the first team squad.
That has been one of Moyes’ biggest frustrations since his return - the hollowing out of the academy and the lack of players knocking on the door to make the step up.
Everton do plan to address that as a priority and have already made moves to do so, with Dean Rastrick recently appointed as the new academy director as part of a search involving the club’s new technical director Nick Cox.
As they get to work on the long term plan, their job will also be to keep a pipeline of players on their way to Moyes’ squad and they do have several talents capturing attention. Teenage forward Braiden Graham, twice named on Moyes’ bench this season, has just received a call-up to the senior Northern Ireland squad, while other prospects like England youth goalkeeper Douglass Lukjanciks provide hope for the short-term.
Whether any of them will have the success of Gordon remains to be seen. But for all the glory of Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy, there will be plenty at Camp Nou now set to learn about Finch Farm. That is a good thing for the club and its reputation.