Michael Ball shares how Everton performance improved with youngsters
Former Everton defender Michael Ball believes the presence of the young players in the squad boosted the performances of the senior players against Chelsea.
Everton responded to having 12 first-team players out of the squad to face Chelsea by fielding a team full of young players, with Rafa Benitez’s side earning a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge.
It was one of the better defensive performances of the season from the Toffees, despite Chelsea dominating possession throughout the game.
Youngsters Anthony Gordon and Jarrad Branthwaite were the heroes on the night and their performances haven’t gone unnoticed.
While writing in his Liverpool Echo column, Michael Ball explained that the presence of the youngsters is likely to have inspired the elder statesmen of the squad to up their game and avoid being embarrassed.
“Yes, it is a step up,” he said. “But when you get given that opportunity no one knows if you can cope or not, and I thought we needed a bit of freshness.
“And what youngsters do is give you that energy, desire and willingness. That, in the end, then rubs off on everybody else.
“That is what happened with myself and the rest of the lads who came through with me, we simply freshened the side up.
“But you can’t expect them to play like that week in, week out. That is the issue with youngsters, the consistency probably isn’t there as they are still learning and developing.
“However, what it does is it freshens it up and makes the senior players stand up a little bit because they don’t want to be embarrassed.
“And to avoid that it makes some of the senior lads in the squad raise their game because they don’t want to see young lads showing them up.”
Freshness
There was a buzz around Stamford Bridge during the game last week but it came from the away end as the youngsters set the tone.
They were aggressive, strong, fast and determined to make a point to the manager that their place in the team is deserved.
Obviously Benitez won’t stick with that lineup when his team returns to full health, but the risk of those first-team players being replaced is very real now.
The freshness of the squad was key and the hunger of those youngsters could be instrumental in getting Everton’s season back on track, even if they’re not on the pitch.
In other Everton news, expected January signing will succeed at Goodison Park according to former boss.