Leighton Baines has always done things his own way and now Everton’s young players will be benefitting from his unique approach.
Baines is of course the best-known member (certainly among the general fanbase) of the trio of Blues appointments confirmed on Monday as the club looks to reshape its junior sections.
New academy director Gareth Prosser already boasts a glowing CV from a similar role at Wolverhampton Wanderers while Paul Tait has been working with youth players at Everton for many years. As a former Premier League player for 15 years and England international, Baines possesses a bigger profile than either of them but he remains at this stage something of an unknown quantity when it comes to his coaching ability.
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Baines has been working with Everton’s young players for the past two years since hanging up his boots but this will be the first post in which he’s working full-time as the main man. Even before he got to this stage, former opponents such as Paul Robinson and Danny Mills both tipped him for a career in football management with the former even going as far as predicting he could become a future Blues boss.
This is only a step onto the first rung of the ladder in terms of potential aspirations down that road but like Colin Harvey, who rose from being a hugely-respected Everton player, then youth coach, reserve team boss, first-team coach and eventually manager, those working under Baines will realise that he’s very much one of their own. Here was a Merseysider who got to pull on the royal blue jersey and serve the club with distinction for well over a decade.
Indeed, he was much more than just a loyal club servant and solid citizen in the mould of fellow local lad Tony Hibbert, who patrolled the opposite full-back flank for so long while Baines was on the other side. Here was someone who could have tried to force through a transfer to Manchester United in 2013 when his former manager David Moyes came calling but he stayed put.
By the time he’d finished, Baines was widely considered to be Everton’s best left-back since England World Cup winner Ray Wilson and given the added expectations in the position within the modern game, he was certainly much more of a threat in the opposition half – particularly from dead-ball situations – than the legendary member of Alf Ramsey’s triumphant side at Wembley. Let go by the Blues himself as a teenager, Baines ended up costing them a then club record fee for a defender (£6million in 2007) to bring him back from Wigan Athletic.
Even then, his early months at Goodison Park weren’t straightforward and as incredible as it might seem now, he wasn’t even a regular in the side with an out-of-position Joleon Lescott often preferred by Moyes in the left-back berth. But as the old adage goes, ‘form is temporary but class is permanent’ and it was never going to be long before Baines made the position his own.
Now he’s embarking on a position that will try and ensure others find a clearer pathway to the Everton first team than himself. Baines is living proof that footballers at the highest level don’t have to conform to a narrow stereotypical typecast and hopefully such a fresh approach will strike a chord with the next generation.
Here is a player who took his guitar with him to the World Cup finals in Brazil in 2014 and two years later during a Q&A session from Everton’s Austrian training camp revealed he was using the trip to catch up on some reading with his book of choice being Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, described as being a lengthy and complex work that takes place in a North American dystopia, focused around on a junior tennis academy and a nearby substance-abuse recovery centre. Despite his artistic leanings though, Baines still used the same interview to trot out the classic line that he didn’t know what he’d have done if he hadn’t have become a footballer as “football was all I thought about doing”.
Maybe so, but the huge rates of attrition for young footballers ensures that as well as developing the stars of tomorrow, Baines will have to learn how to deal with the many aspiring Premier League players who don’t make it. If anyone appeared ideally suited to taking on such a task though then it’s him. It will be hoped that Baines is able to develop several first-team players of tomorrow for Frank Lampard on his watch, but in truth if he unearths just a single one of his calibre then his appointment will be entirely vindicated.
