Southern's Message After Battling Burnley Performance

Keith Southern hailed the impact of youngsters stepping up and encouraged his Everton Under-18s side to stay positive despite a narrow 1–0 league defeat to Burnley on Tuesday evening.

The young Blues were dealt a major setback just before half-time when Ademide Akarakiri was dismissed, leaving the hosts to battle the entire second half with 10 men.

Burnley capitalised almost immediately after the restart, when Dylan Morison notched what proved to be the decisive goal.

Despite the numerical disadvantage, Everton showed admirable resilience throughout and created several opportunities as the second half wore on.

Speaking to evertonfc.com afterwards, Southern, who is currently managing injuries to several of his regular Under-18s players, praised a number of youngsters for grasping early opportunities with his team.

He said: “I thought Harlow [McEveley] at centre-back was excellent, he's 15 and playing against lads two years older than him. It’s brilliant. We also brought Francis Boggan on tonight, he would have started, but he’ll start on Saturday instead, we don't want to give him too much football because he's only 14 so we don't want to lose him through an injury.

“Harry Brooks came on and did really well in the second half, so these Under-16s boys are getting opportunities which is what it's about so yes some of the injured boys are missing out unfortunately, but it opens the doors, it always does for the younger players or opportunities for somebody else, so that's what we're focussing on now.”

On the red card for Akarakiri – a central midfielder who was asked to deputise at centre-back, given Southern's lack of current defensive options – Southern continued: “I think Demi played well before he got sent off, he's not a natural defender, we’re just short of lads to play in the backline with really bad injuries unfortunately, Demi is helping with his size and his presence. We'll help him learn from that, he knows that it's football at this level, you're learning all the time, the boys are learning all the time, and we’re here as coaches to help them on their journey.

“In four days' time you get another opportunity, we go to Wolves to put right what we didn't quite get right, and then we go to Millwall in the Youth Cup, before we’ve got two fantastic games against Manchester United and Manchester City to finish the calendar year.”

Looking ahead, the young Toffees face an action-packed festive period, with five more games before Christmas, including the beginning of their FA Youth Cup campaign – a clash with Millwall at The Den on Friday 5 December (7pm GMT kick-off).

“They've had a fantastic programme in the first four or five months since they've come back," added Southern. "To evaluate the first part of the season as a whole I think they've had a great season, they've had foreign tours abroad, they've had some great fixtures in the Premier League Cup, the games programme in the Premier League season is really good, so there's a lot of learning being done, there's a lot of learning to go and get better at but I think they've had a really good experience and we've got some fantastic games on the horizon.”