Two Everton youngsters have recently had a brilliant month of success. Jonjoe Kenny, a right-back, and Ryan Ledson, a centre-midfielder have won both the U17 European Championships with England and the U18 academy title for the Blues.
But what type of players are they?
Jonjoe Kenny
After the first game I was sort of ‘meh’. He was solid enough but didn’t do much on the ball. Oh how that changed. As he went through the tournament he got better and better and ultimately this lead to a MOTM performance in the final which saw Kenny strike the winning penalty.
By the final game he was dealing comfortably with arguably the player of the tournament, in Dutch left winger Bilal Ould-Chikh, who was a pacey athlete that wasn’t too shabby with the ball.
Not only did Kenny remain solid throughout, he has also obviously been inspired by the first team showings of Seamus Coleman and Leighton Baines as he loves to get forward. Sometimes he was left ignored due to the class winger ahead of him in Patrick Roberts that would much prefer to keep the ball and have a shot. However, when the right-back did receive the ball he had pace and end product, throwing some lovely crosses across the box. It was him that was leaping in the air in the final minute attempting to get the winner in the final, alas the ball found the roof of the net. He got his amends though as he stepped up to take the final penalty, and as calm as you like, smashed the ball home, only to be met with a group of similar aged lads running at him and to pile on the celebrations.
Ryan Ledson
Captain of the U18’s, captain of England U17’s. Probably the more well-known player in the academy as he will highly regarded by all who’ve seen him. There is a reason, the boy is class.
In his first two games he bossed the midfield. Against weaker opposition in Malta and Turkey, he was allowed time on the space to pick his passes, and he can certainly pick his passes. He’s two footed, stronger with the right, but similar to Ross Barkley in that it’s difficult to tell. He uses all sort of different techniques, he can drill it wide or into the forward, he can loft passes to switch play at any given moment or he can simply lay it off and keep possession when required.
Against Italy and the Dutch twice, he was left with less space and was required to do a tougher job in screening and protecting the back four. He wasn’t as highlighted as he was against the weaker opposition, but this is an obvious consequence of a higher standard of football, but he was still brilliant at it. He is a ferocious tackler. More involved Everton fans may have seen the YouTube videos that see him throwing in horrendous tackles in the mini-derbies. This is him though. He’s a winner, he’s a captain, he lets people know he’s there right from the outset.
I can only imagine and dream of the forward pass into the striker/centre-attacking-mid that he so often loves with Barkley receiving it, turning and firing in a beauty of a goal in the final of a cup, with Ross and Ryan going on to lift the trophy.
Make it happen, boys.