Fiorentina striker Moise Kean has been reflecting on his time at Everton and how it has shaped him to become the player he is today
Moise Kean looks back at his spell with Everton as one of his “dark times” but insists that he finds positives from all his footballing experiences. The former Juventus wonderkid proved to be a major disappointment both on and off the pitch for the Blues.
He netted just twice in 32 Premier League matches and after he posted a video of a party he hosted in his Cheshire apartment during the height of lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, the club released a statement to say they were “appalled” by his “unacceptable actions.”Everton at least managed to get their money back on the £25million swap when he returned to Juventus via a loan spell at Paris Saint-Germain. \nut after failing to find the net in 20 games last season for the club who have won a record 36 Scudettos, Kean is enjoying a new lease of life at Fiorentina and has struck 11 times in 14 outings so far this term.
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Over five years on from when he arrived at Goodison Park as a teenager, the striker told the Athletic: “Out of all the experiences I’ve had, you won’t ever hear me say I had a bad one.“I find positives in all of them. If I hadn’t spent that year at Everton, I wouldn’t have learned the things I did there.
“I was a bit unlucky. I went there expecting to play a bit more. I was 19. I joined from Juve and thought I was going to smash it.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t go like that. We went through three coaches that year and mentally… it was all new for me. I was in England, it was a new environment.”Indeed, having been brought in under Marco Silva and with director of football Marcel Brands telling the player’s mother Isabelle: “We will take care of your son,” following the sacking of the Portuguese boss in December, with Everton in the relegation zone, Kean suffered the ignominy of being hooked by Duncan Ferguson just 18 minutes after the caretaker manager had introduced him as a substitute in a 1-1 draw at Manchester United, before compatriot Carlo Ancelotti arrived to take charge.When The Athletic commented on the weather in Merseyside and the lack of sun compared with parts of Italy, it brings back a memory for Kean.He said: “They were so used to not seeing the sun, they were barbecuing on the beach in winter (The same beach in Crosby that Ancelotti used to love to stroll down). They were in short sleeves in winter. I said to myself: ‘These people are out of their minds’. But England made me learn a lot about myself. I matured a lot. When I got there I didn’t play much. I used to think, ‘How am I not getting into this team, at Everton?’
“Mentally, it made me evolve. I wasn’t playing and it was in dark times that I knew I had to grit my teeth and train even more.“Then the chance to go to PSG (on loan) came along, I moved there and got everything out of myself that I could. I wasn’t playing at Everton and I knew I had to give triple, that’s how it went.”
