Royal Blue column: Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas reflects on two January that deals that have caused him looking back at some of the toughest moments of the final years under Farhad Moshiri, and to hope the future will be different
Summer 2023 was not where I expected my mind to turn this week. But while Everton have been busy underneath
the surface, the hard work of the transfer window has yet to lead to an incoming and so I have had more time to
explore elsewhere than in a regular week.
The victory over Tottenham Hotspur has also been beneficial; after three points, isn’t life much simpler? I have
covered the Blues for two and a half years, but I haven’t had as many of those to get me from one game to another
as I would have wanted.
In any case, two transfers elsewhere caught my eye in the absence of the new players that I believe we all,
including the club executives, recognize would be helpful at this time.
The first was a bit of a surprise, as Isaac Price joined West Bromwich Albion after an 18 month stint in Belgium.
The second had been trailed for most of this month, with Tom Cannon finally completing his move to Sheffield
United on Thursday.
That’s two Everton academy graduates, youngsters who rose through the ranks at Finch Farm and eventually
touched upon the senior team, now set to lead their new clubs through the drama of a promotion push to
the Premier League.
I’m delighted for both players. Together, with the likes of Lewis Warrington – who has also moved this week,
joining Salford United on loan from Leyton Orient – and Stanley Mills, who scored for Everton Under-21s on his
return last week after a year out with injury, they were part of an U21s cohort that had a lot of promise.
When Frank Lampard brought the remnants of his team to Australia during the World Cup break in November
2022, Mills, Price, and Cannon all joined the senior squad.
Despite the chaos that followed that trip and the fact that the Bournemouth double header immediately before it
marked the beginning of Lampard’s decline, there was still cause for optimism as Bondi replaced Boscombe Beach
and Lampard planned for a January transfer window in which he thought he could bolster his team. What we now
know, we would have known then.
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