19-year-old Kieran Dowell has shone in the reserves but believes he needs to experience the senior game before he can make his mark at Everton.
The future looks positively gleaming for Everton Football Club at present.
With Tom Davies and Ademola Lookman both opening their Toffees accounts in Sunday’s 4-0 thrashing of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, not to mention Ross Barkley and Romelu Lukaku performing at their peak and Mason Holgate impressing at the back, Ronald Koeman’s side suddenly seems well placed to kick on and build upon their undoubted potential.
It’s a bright future Kieran Dowell wants to be a big part of. The 19-year-old playmaker no longer enjoys the benefits of flanking the tenacious, languid Davies in the reserves but there’s no reason why the Ormskirk-born talent can’t follow his former midfield partner into the Everton first-team.
However, as reported by the Liverpool Echo, Dowell is eyeing up a temporary stint away from Goodison Park to, in his own mature words, make himself a man.
“I’d love to go out on loan,” the 19-year-old said.
“Speaking to the first-team players, the majority of them have come from a lower team, for example [Leighton] Baines has come to Everton from Wigan and you see Ross [Barkley] going on loan and Seamus [Coleman] as well.
“Seeing Tom doing stuff like he did at the weekend, and Mase [Holgate] as well, it shows that there is a path there for you and the club want you to come through.”
However, it must be pointed out that neither Davies nor Holgate relied upon a short-term loan to bring themselves to the attention of the first-team coaches.
Meanwhile, many of Everton’s most promising academy stars, from Conor McAleny, Matt Pennington and Luke Garbutt, even Ross Barkley at Leeds and Brendan Galloway at West Brom, made next to no impact in short-term stints away from Goodison Park.
Each individual case is different however but, if recent history is anything to go by, Everton’s youngsters stand a much greater chance of progression when they remain within the walls of Finch Farm.
Whatever the reason, loan deals don’t seem to do the trick.
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