Joe Ellis

Fri 14 October 2022 15:10, UK

Four Everton starlets have been impressing manager Frank Lampard in training recently with first-team involvements close, according to the Liverpool Echo.

All four are teenagers who have been staples of the club’s Under-18s and Under-21s teams over the past few years although one has now gone out on loan.

Lewis Warrington is the man in question who Lampard has been mightily impressed by ever since the pre-season tour to America but transfer dealings pushed him down the pecking order so he now plays for Fleetwood Town.

Stanley Mills and Reece Welch also headed to the States in pre-season and were just as impressive to the manager and they remain at Finch Farm, waiting to get their opportunity.

As is Isaac Price who remained in England during the tour across the pond but has progressed enough to catch Lampard’s eye with all four players under consideration for first-team involvements at some stage.

Trust the process

It will soon become a frustration for this quartet that they can’t break into the first team but they have to remember that every academy graduate has that same struggle with the exception of a handful who get their chance through injuries.

Lampard is renowned for bringing through local talent as he did at Derby County with Jason Knight and Max Bird (among others) and then at Chelsea with Reece James and Mason Mount.

It doesn’t happen overnight and they have to realise that but if they can keep putting the manager and the senior players in their position under pressure, they will get their rewards eventually.

These could be the first group of players who start a long production line of players that regularly rise through the ranks at Finch Farm to then play in the Premier League if Farhad Moshiri can keep his faith in Lampard for a long period of time.

It has been too much of a revolving door in the manager’s seat at Goodison Park recently but for Everton to be a successful club long-term, they need to keep Lampard for a good few years yet.