SILVA URGING KIDS TO SHINE
MARCO SILVA is relishing his return to football after six months on the sidelines.
And even though he has signed seven players in the transfer window, four of them on deadline day, the new Everton manager insisted he is more exited by the youngsters who are the future of the club.
He revealed it may be some weeks before eleventh-hour captures Yerry Mina (below), Andre Gomes, Bernard and Kurt Zouma feature in the first team, and sees that as an opportunity for his kids to set down a marker, not an excuse to hide behind.
Amid the understandable buzz around the new faces, Silva explained how players such as Ademola Lookman are just as important to him . . or even more so.
Speaking about the refusal to let Lookman, 20, leave, even though he was wanted by Leipzig, he said: “Of course he’s in my plans. He’s our present and he’s our future.
“From the first day I told him and I told our board he is a player I believe in.
“First he has to understand he’s at a big club. I think he understands and I’m here to be clear with him. He went on loan and was happy there, he enjoyed the football too.
“Now he deserves to come in and to stay with us . . and now he has to fight for his place.
“I’m here to do everything I can to make him happy again, to put him in contention to fight for a place in the starting eleven and then it’s for him to keep it.
“It’s not a case of we brought in Richarlison or Bernard as well. If he’s in a better position and form than the others then for sure he will play.”
Silva (above) also suggested striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin, 21, will play a big role too, along with young midfielder Tom Davies, as he gives chances while the new recruits bed in.
Silva will not go looking for excuses as he waits for the big money signings to arrive.
He said that just because he sealed deals for four players only two days before the start of the season does not mean “I’ll have an excuse because I need three or four months”.
“The football is always the next day, the next match as well. We’ve been working with these players for six week and at Wolves have to show where we are now.”