I have seen change in players at Finch Farm as Everton questions transformed
The roadworks surrounding Everton’s training ground have been a fixture of the season to date, the new housing estate on what were fields opposite the complex now filled with homes.
That building project just beyond the walls of Finch Farm has been echoed by the work inside the state-of-the-art facility. After a slow start, Everton are growing into this season and all of a sudden, a solid foundation for progress appears to have been built.
At his pre-Fulham press conference on Thursday, Sean Dyche was asked about the impact on his players of the four game unbeaten run his side is currently enjoying.
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This is a manager who has previously expressed frustration at the mood swings of the playing squad he inherited. At times, he has felt the atmosphere too vulnerable to the twists and turns of a Premier League campaign, too emotional. But for once he was willing to concede that recent results had provided a confidence boost to his players and staff.
The question, to an extent, felt a rhetorical one. You do not need to be a body language expert to have seen the change as four straight league defeats turned into one, two, three and now another match unbeaten. You can see it in the gait of the first team players as they walk around the centre - shoulders that have carried such a heavy burden over recent years sit straighter, you can hear it in the laughs and hubbub that bubbles around the corridors that surround the media room. You can even see it in the journalists tasked with covering this great club - questions move from pressure to positivity and all of a sudden the world seems a much brighter place.
It did again on Thursday, as autumn struck Finch Farm hard. The sun shone down on the training pitches and gusts sent golden leaves swirling through a car park where Everton’s Under-21s filtered out of various entrances to meet each other just as reporters were entering the building for first team coverage.
Among the academy starlets there is room for optimism too, the crowd including Charlie Whitaker, Isaac Heath, Martin Sherif and Omari Benjamin, all young attackers who have enjoyed strong starts to the campaign.
It is hard to escape the sense of hope that currently underpins the activity at Finch Farm. In the short term that means the starlets who are gaining increasing experience in training with the senior squad and, in the first team, where the current form has been built despite a brutal injury and illness crisis.
The returns of Jarrad Branthwaite, Jesper Lindstrom, Seamus Coleman and Nathan Patterson offers belief that four unbeaten could become five on Saturday, then six at Southampton and so on. In the long term it is the hope the takeover saga that has undermined any past attempt at progress is about to reach a positive conclusion.
There is no better example of how the momentum has swung in the right direction than the plaudits currently being received by Ashley Young and Michael Keane. Both players have had their critics, and both endured difficult starts to the season. Both have been instrumental in the turnaround and both, justifiably, led the celebrations in front of the away end at Portman Road last week.
Their role in Everton’s improved fortunes is particularly satisfying for Dyche, whose faith in them has been vindicated: “I think their professionalism has been outstanding ever since I’ve been at the club” he said when asked about their impact. “They just continue to get out there and play, play hard, work hard. All the things you want from proper professionals and they certainly are proper professionals.”
Whether they will remain in the team as the likes of Branthwaite, Coleman and Patterson fight to return this week is yet to be seen. Having the privilege of a selection dilemma is just another problem that shows how much has changed in the past month as the building blocks for progress continue to be laid at Everton.