The NSNO Everton Forums

22 is leaving it a bit late, fuck me!

When you have a player in the top 2 in Europe for recoveries and duels won (I think that was the stat) then you help him develop the other areas... Yes he's positionally ill disciplined and holds on to the ball too long, but give him time and that'll improve and he'll become a more rounded player.

He's a perfect example of the modern footballer compared to the previous generation.

Decent athlete, tall, strong, got a turn of pace. Easy on the eye as he does the physical stuff well.

However doesn't have a football brain. Has missed too much regular football in his formative years of 18-21 to develop one by playing every week, learning on the job by making mistakes, anticipating situations, game awareness.

He'll take a lot of coaching to make the next step. Ideally you want a football brain first while the physical stuff develops. He has it the other way round.

Plenty to work with though and if we get it right could be a great player. Probably needs a proper coach to supervise his development though rather than a manager who has a rather limited range of tactics and man management of young players.

Bumble wrote: ↑Thu Jan 08, 2026 10:11 am He's a perfect example of the modern footballer compared to the previous generation.

Decent athlete, tall, strong, got a turn of pace. Easy on the eye as he does the physical stuff well.

However doesn't have a football brain. Has missed too much regular football in his formative years of 18-21 to develop one by playing every week, learning on the job by making mistakes, anticipating situations, game awareness.

He'll take a lot of coaching to make the next step. Ideally you want a football brain first while the physical stuff develops. He has it the other way round.

Plenty to work with though and if we get it right could be a great player. Probably needs a proper coach to supervise his development though rather than a manager who has a rather limited range of tactics and man management of young players.

He's improved massively under Moyes though so not sure this rings all that true tbh

AjaxAndy wrote: ↑Thu Jan 08, 2026 10:15 am He's improved massively under Moyes though so not sure this rings all that true tbh

He has improved, not disputing that. When Moyes came in his game was so sketchy he shouldn't have even been near the first team. Now he is and pulls out some good halves of football, so it's progress.

That doesn't compensate for the parts of his game that he still needs to work on. He's only 22. Not sure why that's even debatable.

Had a re watch of the parts of the game I had missed and he actually did quite well. He made a few decent passes in that spell. Might have undersold him a bit. A good 7/10.

He had a really good game, but he fucked up a key moment.

Not releasing the ball to Grealish on the counter. You dont really see that in the PL. 99% of the midfielders in this league make that pass and there's a goalscoring chance.

His impact on the game lessened in the second half but to be fair to him, Edwards made a sub and a tactical change at half time and Moyes didn't react to it.

He’s been one of the biggest positives this season for me, his development feels like a big bonus . He’s not been perfect but he’s clearly worked on areas of his game that he needed to improve on

Not releasing the ball to Grealish the other day was a mistake, but hopefully one he learns from. He made a few great bursting runs through the other day and that was one of them. Can see that he’s upped his game and started to try take responsibility more, which should be encouraged

He seems to be really good at winning the ball back- when we’ve got KDH and Ndiaye back in conjunction with Grealish we’ve got players who can do the next bit, so if he masters passing to the ones who can do something magic with the ball after he’s won it back , then I think he could be of good value to us

I mean you can’t ask for much more from the football equivalent of a free toy that was inside a box of cereal

His twisting and turning out of tight spaces is extremely underrated too imo... It looks like he's been told to be more brave in those situations, and recently he's been getting out of dangerous situations in the edge of our area with a mix of his body strength and a bit of skill before bursting forward.

Personally I wouldn't put Gana back in ahead of him once he's back. Tim is the future and needs to start whenever fit to continue this momentum in his development.

Even his passing has improved by a large margin post Newcastle, I don't worry about him when he's on the ball any more... Just needs to work on that side for things when he's got time now as that's still a weakness.