Everton fell to a heavy defeat in the Under-21s derby as Liverpool beat Paul Tait’s team 4-0.
The Blues survived a difficult first half in which their opponents twice hit the woodwork, but the hosts took advantage of their dominance in the second half.
While the defeat will disappoint somec, there were important mitigating factors - including the youth of a side that included a number of the academy’s U18s players.
Here are a few takeaways from the action in Kirkby.
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Billy Crellin impressive despite defeat
Billy Crellin was Everton’s busiest player but he was also the young Blues’ best. The young goalkeeper started this match with last season’s U21s’ number one, Zan-Luk Leban, having moved on loan to Farsley Celtic. Crellin was under almost constant pressure and produced good saves from Mateusz Musialowski and Luca Stephenson. On a night in which he conceded four it would be easy to overlook what he did, but without the 23-year-old the scoreline could have been much worse.
Young Blues match senior formation
One of the underlying challenges for director of football Kevin Thelwell is to align the academy with the senior side in a bid to produce a more effective pathway into the first team. On Monday night that seemed to come into effect with the U21s’ formation mirroring the line-up used so often by Sean Dyche - a 4-5-1 that became a 4-4-1-1 when Harry Apter was given the opportunity to burst forward and support Francis Okoronkwo.
Line-up particularly inexperienced
This was a particularly young and inexperienced line-up from Paul Tait. Among the starting XI were Odin Samuels-Smith
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