The 22-year-old has returned from a niggling injury better than ever and has his eyes set on the Everton first-team.
Alan Stubbs knows what it takes to make it at the top level. After making his name with Celtic, the Kirkby-born stopper played almost 200 Premier League games at the heart of the Everton backline either side of a brief stint in Sunderland.
Therefore, it’s safe to assume he knows a promising young centre-back when he sees one, as reported by the Liverpool Echo.
And Matty Pennington is exactly that. The 22-year-old may have only featured four times in the top flight for The Toffees but if it wasn’t for an injury hit few months, Pennington may have made an impact in the Everton first-team akin to that of fellow academy star Tom Davies or improving centre-back Mason Holgate.
Or, more likely, he’d have spent the first half of the season honing his trade on loan in the second tier. Stubbs told the Liverpool Echo that, if injury had not struck in pre-season, he would have made Pennington his top target at Rotherham United.
Nonetheless, the young defender appears to have a bright future in the Everton first-team, even if he’s something of a late bloomer at the age of 22.
In his first game back after recovering from a niggling hamstring problem, academy boss David Unsworth didn’t hold back in his praise after his side’s 1-0 triumph over the Arsenal Under-23s.
“Matty Pennington, it was probably one of the best displays at this level I’ve ever seen – it was faultless,” he said in quotes reported by the Liverpool Echo.
The Warrington-born centre-back, or the ‘Rolls-Royce’ to use Unsworth’s terms, could be Everton’s next homegrown starlet. Whether he would have rescued Rotherham’s season, however, is another matter entirely.
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