It was always going to be a challenge for Paul Tait’s Everton Under-21’s at Edgeley Park on Tuesday evening. The first team kicked off just 45 minutes after this Bristol Street Motors Trophy game began. As we all know, injuries and illness amongst the seniors meant call-ups for several Under 21 players who would undoubtedly have started against Stockport County. The key missing players for Tait were Martin Sherif, Luke Butterfield, Bradley Moonan and Owen Barker, I think we can safely say Roman Dixon and Harrison Armstrong are already promoted to the first team squad.
In stark contrast, Stockport were able to call upon a player with Champions League experience (Nick Powell, ex-Mancheter United) as well as two former Everton Under 21 players of recent years, Callum Connolly and Ibou Touray. They had the star of the night also in Jack Diamond, a former Sunderland winger, who left beleaguered Blues left back Jack Butler in his trail almost at will. The inexperienced Toffees line up was as below:
The “experience” in the Everton side came from 21 year old goalkeeper Slovenian Zan-Luk Leban and 20 year old captain-for-the-night Charlie Whitaker. With the exception of 19 year old Jack Tierney the rest were 18 or 17 year olds with several 16 year olds on the bench. This was against 30 year old Powell and 26 year old lifelong Everton supporter Connolly amongst many other senior professionals.
To be honest, it seemed only a matter of time before Stockport scored such was their superiority in terms of experience and physique. As early as the 9th minute, Leban made a great save to divert a goalbound shot onto the bar and a minute later Stockport hit the bar again.
It seemed Everton had ridden the storm and had begun to get a foothold in the game, culminating in the saw a fine 28th minute break by makeshift right back Isaac Heath. He took the ball from inside his own half against a retreating defence and his lay off saw Whitaker’s shot come back off the near post.
Pictured below, under a full moon, during a time when the Blues were finding their feet, Callum Bates confidently takes on the Stockport seniors.
As all Evertonians now know, chances which aren’t taken are punished severely this season apparently and this was no exception just one minute after Whitaker’s chance. The dangerous right winger Diamond beat Butler all ends up and his pass was turned home by big striker Oloafe despite the efforts of Odin Samuels-Smith and Leban. 0-1.
Whilst Everton had shown reasonable professionalism in the first half hour, a rather embarrassing goal in the 33rd minute undid that to a degree. A long punt by the Stockport goalkeeper gave Blues defender Tierney a decision to make as it bounced. He didn’t make the correct one and his underhit and slightly wayward backpass left goalkeeper Leban marooned. In truth, Leban could have helped his defender more. Fevrier gobbled up the chance, 0-2.
The Blues showed spirit towards he end of the half as nice interplay between Whitaker and Omari Benjamin saw the latter dispossessed just as he was poised to pull the trigger. Benjamin then put a delightful flick header onto the crossbar. Half-time 0-2.
The Toffees started brightly with two Jacob Beaumont-Clark shots reminding Stockport the tie was not over before Oloafe got his second of the night in the 51st minute to make it 3 and dishearten the Blues. The experienced Powell made it 4 just after the hour mark with a close range header following a free-kick and it prompted Tait to make a raft of substitutions with the game effectively gone.
In the 83rd minute the Blues got reward for their commendable efforts as Benjamin fired home after a piece of poor passing by the home goalkeeper as Everton still pressed. 1-4 and it marked Benjamin’s last contribution as 16 year old Braiden Graham got on the pitch immediately after the goal to harry the home defence.
I guess the scoreline was inevitable but the youngsters will have learned a lot from the evening. The next game is at home to Sunderland on Sunday September 22nd.