Frank Lampard says Everton’s youngsters have impressed when given opportunities to train with the first team. The Blues boss has repeatedly named players from the U23s in his matchday squads since he took over in January. Reece Welsh, Isaac Price and Lewis Dobbin were also given minutes in the FA Cup fifth round win over Boreham Wood.
Frank Lampard said: “I took Mason to Derby, he was a young man, he had a really good season for us and learnt a lot. He started brilliantly, went a bit quiet and came back brilliantly and was integral to us. It was a development year for him because of his age and body and living away from home in the Midlands and Championship football is a real grind so to see that and come back and I had confidence to put him in the team at Chelsea straight away because he deserved to be in the team straight away.”
Lampard likened Gordon to Mount as the 21-year-old continues to impress,
Frank Lampard added: “Anthony is a great kid, one of the greatest attitudes I have seen in the game, he is very similar to Mason Mount.”
Lampard highlighted the club’s current plight as a reason for not being able to give current U23s players experience on the pitch. But he said he has been impressed with a number of the youngsters and hopes to be able to offer more opportunity for progression in the future.
Frank Lampard said: “The players that sometimes we need, or who are training well, and who we hear are training well, come in and train with us. Players have come over and offered a lot in terms of training. The harder part for me is [them] coming in. We’ve got, sometimes, opportunities in the squad, it’s not easy to give a young player a chance even when you want to. Under pressure situations it might not be the perfect time to do it so my opinion is we have to wait a little bit, keep working with them on the training pitch, if and when we get through to more stable times – because since I have been in it’s been a battle of a certain type – we can start to introduce players more into the team that deserve to be.”
