Sam’s scorn for kids means Everton must keep looking

Sam allardyce said all the right things when applying for the everton job through beIN Sports. ‘It looks like it’s really going to be tough for them to get out of that position,’ he announced. ‘They just perhaps want a bit of guidance on how to rectify those problems. I’ve been in this position with the last three clubs I’ve had and I’d just put the team back to basics.’ So far, so predictable. allardyce (below) has a deserved reputation as the Premier league’s red adair. He takes over doomed clubs such as Sunderland and crystal Palace and extinguishes fires. Sunderland may well fall through two divisions without him. Palace recorded the worst start in Premier league history after he left. Blackburn rovers have never been the same since sacking him. There is no doubt allardyce is the man for lost causes. The question is, exactly how lost are everton? This is no time for complacency but, equally, does a club with everton’s squad strength need allardyce’s limited prescription for revival? In the same week that he offered himself for consideration at Goodison, allardyce gave his thoughts on england’s Under 17 World cup win. It would not make happy reading for everton’s highly regarded youth. ‘I don’t think people understand or recognise the pressure that managers are under to get results short term,’ allardyce wrote in the times. ‘Jobs are on the line earlier and earlier. every game is a must-win game. do you go with a teenager who is highly talented but may not yet have the physical, mental or tactical maturity to do what you require of him? Or do you go with a senior international, who is already physically and mentally conditioned to the Premier league? Nine times out of 10, if you are in a pressurised situation, you go with experience. I have been in that situation many times and I have usually gone with experience. Very few lads of 17 or 18 are ready to play in the Premier league. It’s not just about ability. ‘you do not want players who will learn on the job, learn from their mistakes. you want to minimise risk. Some of them may have to drop down to the championship to prove themselves or move abroad.’ For english football, that’s merely a rather disheartening view. For everton, with youth development the most consistently successful arm of the club, it should be terrifying. How can allardyce be the right man for a club that has Tom davies, ademola lookman, mason Holgate, Jonjoe Kenny, dominic calvertlewin, even ross Barkley and michael Keane, on their books, if he thinks like that? youth has been everything to everton in recent years, not least a financial lifeline. Say what you like about david moyes, he had Wayne rooney in the team at 16, gave Barkley his debut at 17 — and it would have been sooner had he not broken a leg on england Under 19 duty — and bought John Stones from Barnsley for £3million. meanwhile, when allardyce wished to assert his credentials on youth he mentioned giving Phil Jones his debut at Blackburn — more than eight years ago. Jones, however, was ‘the exception, not the norm’. let’s hope the norm wasn’t the team allardyce fielded for West Ham, against second-tier Nottingham Forest in the Fa cup on January 5, 2014. Ostensibly to preserve first-team players for a capital One cup tie with manchester city — which West Ham duly lost 6-0, so heaven knows what the score would have been were they tired — allardyce broke with tradition and threw in nine kids, including three substitutes. West Ham lost 5-0 to Forest and many fledgling careers did not recover. Only reece Burke, now on loan at Bolton, still has a contract with the club and many contemporaries have fallen from the league altogether. a quick where-are-they-now, finds players from the Forest game at Boreham Wood, macclesfield, margate and Hemel Hempstead Town. maybe West Ham — the club of rio Ferdinand, Frank lampard, Joe cole and michael carrick — were simply in an extremely fallow spell for youth production, or maybe that is what happens with insensitive treatment, or when the manager so rarely looks the way of its teenagers. allardyce would keep everton up, there is no doubt of that — but that is not the same as saying he is what everton need. mauricio Pochettino is what they need — or at least a manager who thinks like him — who sees strong youth as an opportunity to be embraced, not a miserable gamble that will get him fired. everton should keep looking.