The Toffees continue to tear it up in pre-season, with new signing Ashley Young ‘getting off the mark’ with the winner on his debut.

The ankle-clasping veteran looked decent throughout, as you would expect for someone who has had his career, and broke the deadlock in the second half when his initial volley was blocked, only to break kindly and allow him to smash the ball high into the net.

That came as something of a relief – if you can have such a thing in a pre-season warm up – as the Toffees looked bright in spells but with no Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the side, lacked any real focus up front. 

Neal Maupay started, and it’s hard not to feel for the little Frenchman. 

Where once he had a reputation for being confrontational and argumentative, now he just looks really angry. 

Angry with himself. 

Angry with Everton.

Angry with his decision to become a footballer.

He looks so resigned to never getting a sight of goal that when he does he is so shocked he can’t react. A volley smashed out of the ground and free header planted well wide summed up his afternoon. Even when the ball was played into his feet and he tried to do the Francis Jeffers lay-off and spin in behind, his first touch made Abdoulaye Doucoure look like prime-time Ronaldinho. 

Ben Godfrey at left-back looked almost as sorrowful. 

Both of them as out of place as that compulsory half a lettuce at the Miller and Carter.

Dwight McNeil and Nathan Paterson were the pick of the Everton players, with the move of the game seeing the Scotland fullback pluck a long Jordan Pickford kick out of the rain-sodden sky at full stretch before squaring for Doucoure to smash a shot against the crossbar.

There are obviously players to return to the squad. Amadou Onana, for instance, is currently boiling piss on social media with the extensive highlights of himself in flowery shirts looking at his phone a lot in Miami. 

And obviously there’s a big Goodison welcome to Arnaut Danjuma and his massive Muller-esque entourage of juice-heads and hair gel merchants. Seriously, you have to admire the chutzpah of this kid. If he plays as well as he talks then he probably would have had a career that didn’t involve one good season in the Championship then being loaned out left, right and centre and siting on the bench at Spurs.

He has some proving to do. 

The arduous search for a back up – or even replacement – for Calvert-Lewin, continues, although the situation at centre-half looks like it needs just as much attention, with the present options being Michael Keane, James Tarkowski and the relative novice Jarrad Branthwaite. Godfrey at a real push.

Custy, la.