David Moyes is putting the Everton players through their paces – and Charly Alcaraz caught his manager’s eye last week.
The Toffees are now just over a month away from their opening Premier League fixture against Crystal Palace.
Pre-season has officially started, and on Saturday Everton beat Dundee in their first friendly.
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Dundee gifted Everton most of the goals in the 4-0 win, but it was a useful exercise nonetheless, with players getting minutes under their belts.
Yesterday, Everton released behind-the-scenes footage of their week in training.
And it was interesting to see Charly Alcaraz come in for praise from the manager.
Charly Alcaraz impresses David Moyes with his playmaking
Alcaraz struggled for minutes last term, making this an important pre-season for the Argentine.
He did have some injury problems, but when fit he was often overlooked by Moyes in favour of the likes of Harrison Armstrong and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
Fans had hoped he would really kick on after his loan spell, which prompted Everton to then buy him last summer.
But that has yet to happen, so what happens with him this summer will be interesting. Alcaraz has already been linked with his former club River Plate, and could be on the move.
But he did impress Moyes in training last week, with a new video on the club’s YouTube channel capturing an outstanding long ball he played to James Garner (2:53).
In a small-sided game, the South American took up a deep position and pinged a glorious diagonal ball out to the onrushing Garner, catching Adam Aznou out.
Garner squared the ball for Michael Keane to tap home.
The pass prompted Moyes to call out ‘Well done, Charly!’ and Dwight McNeil also shouted ‘Charly!’ in acknowledgment.
Just before this, Moyes had said ‘Have you got anything inside? If not, can we go out wide?’. Alcaraz was already mid-motion before even hearing this prompt, and executed the pass to perfection.
Of course, this is only a very small snippet from a small-sided training exercise.
But it was interesting to see Alcaraz spray a ball like that from seemingly quite a deep position.
Given the competition for places, it’s good to see him potentially being able to operate in those areas and showing a bit more versatility.
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