Ancelotti admits desire to promote youth to first-team at Everton

Carlo Ancelotti has admitted that he intends on promoting youth players at Everton and instigating a strong relationship with the academy.

Following Everton’s disastrous FA Cup loss against Liverpool on Sunday, Ancelotti knows that his squad needs a major overhauling, but it is too much to expect dramatic immediate change.

As such, the Italian has admitted that he is keen to keep working with the club’s youth squad, bringing the younger players to train with the first team.

Tom Davies, Mason Holgate and Dominic Calvert-Lewin have all come up from the Under-23s in recent years, and with Anthony Gordon currently in and around the first-team, the club are looking to continue that trend.

As reported by the Daily Star, Ancelotti said:

The first team have to have a strong relationship with the academy. We have to work together to improve the players from the youth system.

There will be times I can take players from the academy to train with the first team. I will speak with the academy manager to find the right way to improve the young players and get them ready for our first team.

I would like to know about all the young players. It would be good to have players come from the academy into the first team. Anthony Gordon is working with us. I see a lot of quality in him.

I have regular contact with Marcel, we have discussions every day to find the right solution to do our best for this club.

Everyone is here to work for this club, to try to bring this club to the highest level possible.

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Following the recent success in promoting from within, as mentioned with the aforementioned trio coming through into the first-team, as well as Jonjoe Kenny, it is of course desirable to see youth players continually introduced into the senior set-up.

Dennis Adeniran, Lewis Gibson and Gordon have all been on the cusp of breaking through, with Gordon having made a couple of cameo appearances, but none were able to really make their big breakthrough under Marco Silva.

Everton have always championed the development of young players on Merseyside, and it is extremely positive to see a manager like Ancelotti, who has previous history of relying heavily on big money signings, talk candidly about wanting to bridge the gap between the senior side and the youth squad.