Martinez’ Faith In Youth Pays Dividends

One of the best things Moyes did for Everton was possibly the final transfer of his reign. Moyes was fantastic in the transfer market but built that reputation on bringing players though from lower divisions or players who had been discarded from other clubs. The likes of Jagielka and Lescott were given their chance to step up and the likes of Pienaar and Howard were given a second chance. Buying youth and bringing them through was never his forte but in John Stones he was convinced enough to buy him from Barnsley.

The reaction to the purchase of Stones was similar to the recent signings of Mason Holgate and Matty Foulds: Appreciation that investing in youth is a good idea, but having no real clue of whether the particular deal will be good for the club. Only a handful of Evertonians would have seen Stones play, and the same with Holgate and Foulds.Certainly no-one predicted just how good Stones would be. Unplayed under Moyes, but blossomed under Martinez. There is a real buzz at the moment that we are doing great things on the training grounds at Finch Farm, and that through great scouting, coaching and management that any player brought to the club has a great chance of success.

Unlike a club like Chelsea who see players as a commodity to be brought, loaned out and then sold for profit, the intention is for these players to form the basis of our first team. Any profit is an unfortunate consequence in many respects, whilst a potential huge transfer fee would be great for the club, it’s money we don’t need to keep going. Martinez would prefer to be able to build the team around our precocious youth but it seems he may be forced to use the money to try and build a team. As negatives go, huge transfer fees give a very thick silver lining to the proverbial cloud.

The rumours of Barcelona interest are a huge compliment to what Martinez is doing. Fans may have rightly criticised about poor results but they have improved, in no small part to Stones, Galloway, Barkley, Lukaku and Deulofeu, all players that he is helping to develop.For a player like Matty Foulds, coming to Everton must be a no brainer. He knows that he will be given every chance of success. He has a manger that will play him if he can, or find him a suitable club on loan if he can’t. He’ll receive a high standard of coaching and development where if he works hard, he’ll reach his potential.

The likes of George Green evidently didn’t want to work hard, and the patience ran too thin, but Martinez hadn’t bought him to the club. Of course, not every story can be a success but you want every player to have the best possible chance, and it seems that way at the moment. Hopefully with Martinez’ set-up we won’t see any more talent slipping through the net. Mustafi is currently a German international and touted to be purchased by one of Europe’s giant clubs, you suspect no such mistake would have been made under Martinez. Life is never that simple however, if Mustafi was brought through then maybe it would have been the case where Stones wasn’t seen as required. Still, it’d be nice to have both.

While some fans are still reserving judgement for what they are seeing on the pitch, what the manager is doing off it is receiving huge praise and rightly so. Whilst the likes of Barkley and Lukaku are showing young players can fulfill their potential with belief in their ability, the likes of Stones and Galloway are showing that there is no better club for a young player to come to. The likes of Deulofeu have shown that we’re a club that a player wants to stay at, and will feel loved at.All of these make Everton an attractive club for any player of talent.

The future looks bright, even if we may lose a few players along the way to the likes of Barcelona. Martinez will hope that he’ll soon be able to offer players a club they’ll never want to leave.