Message clear as David Moyes watches on as Everton £32m duo plus new signing suffer Bradford pain

Analysis from Valley Parade as Everton U21s are thrashed 5-1 by Bradford City in their Vertu Trophy group game

Everton named a couple of first-team players who cost a combined £32million plus summer signing Adam Aznou in their Under-21s side for their Vertu Trophy group game at Bradford City, but they were unable to clip the Bantams' wings with the hosts out of sight and 4-0 up by the interval after a shambolic first half showing from the visitors, as David Moyes watched on from the stands.

Give credit to the Yorkshiremen who played some slick, intelligent football to build up their big lead, but given the talent that the Blues possessed in their own ranks, this was pretty damning stuff. Bradford were on the front foot from the start and opened the scoring just seven minutes in when Stephen Humphrys' initial shot was blocked only for Calum Kavanagh to fire into the net, despite Aled Thomas' desperate attempt to clear the ball off the line.

Seven minutes after that, City doubled their lead and, although the home commentator credited the effort to Humphrys - whose shot was heading in - there's also no doubt about the painful truth that it was in fact an own goal from Nathan Patterson, who, in his attempts to block the effort, only succeeded in sliding it over the line. Another attempted clearance from the Scot came perilously close to going in a further seven minutes after that, but this time Humphrys really did score as Everton failed to clear their lines, and he netted with a smart finish.

OPINION

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The hosts, who are managed by Graham Alexander - who played under Moyes at Preston North End - have shown that taking the cups seriously can help build momentum and are sitting second in League One. This was their 11th win this season in all competitions after defeating Blackburn and Stoke in the Carabao Cup before suffering one of just two defeats this season when knocked out by holders Newcastle, added a fourth on 41 minutes as Humphrys fired in a low cross from the right and George Lapslie swept the ball home. It was the kind of delivery that the Blues would have been expected Patterson to put in, but on one of his rare forays forwards, he gave away a free-kick for handling the ball and then his night got worse as referee James Oldham showed him a yellow card. Snapped up by Rafael Benitez for £12million, the Glaswegian was earmarked as the long-term successor for Seamus Coleman, Everton's best right-back of the Premier League era, but whereas the man from Killybegs goes down as one of the great bargain buys with his fabled sixty grand fee, Patterson has now found himself largely overlooked by the last three Blues bosses. Modern day icon Coleman is now just one appearance shy of joining the legendary Dixie Dean and Leon Osman in Everton's all-time appearance top 10 and, while his body doesn't seem to be able to enable him to play regularly these days, he still marked his 37th birthday this week with a sparkling display for the Republic of Ireland in their stoppage time defeat to Portugal - in what was his first international in over a year before overcoming Armenia - while Patterson was being given the runaround by third tier opponents. Whether it was Sean Dyche with Ben Godfrey or Coleman's colleague with club and country, Jake O'Brien, now under Moyes, Patterson has found himself overlooked by team-mates who have been chosen out of position ahead of him. The Blues also tried to sign Kenny Tete from Fulham over the summer before the Dutchman decided to accept improved terms at Craven Cottage, so he was perhaps already on borrowed time and the task of nailing down a regular first-team spot looks as daunting as ever after this showing. In contrast, Dwight McNeil, who Everton paid £20million for to prise from Burnley in 2022, was a first-team regular for two-and-a-half years - before picking up a serious knee injury against Wolves last December. While he's always relied on his wand of a left foot - dubbed 'the paintbrush' - the pot is looking pretty dry right now. Deployed in the No.10 role, a talent as gifted as McNeil should have been running the show here, but he struggled to have any sort of impact. When speaking to this correspondent in the USA ahead of the Blues' opening fixture in the Premier League Summer Series, the Rochdale-born player acknowledged that this was a big season for him, but since then Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Jack Grealish and Tyler Dibling have all been signed for big money and. like Patterson, it now appears a long way back with this display following on from his lacklustre performance when given a start against Wolves in the Carabao Cup. From Barcelona to Bayern to... Bradford. Aznou must hope his best Everton days still lie ahead, but their teenage prospect has still got a considerable way to go in his ongoing development. When the Morocco international joined up with the Blues' senior squad in Atlanta, fans hoped they were finally getting some decent competition for Vitaliy Mykolenko, only or Moyes to caution that while they liked what they saw of him, he wasn't quite ready for the rigours of Premier League football just yet. There was a warning with Aznou endured a baptism of fire when coming on as an early substitute for the Ukrainian against Roma, only to get hooked himself and such realities crystallised here. The second half was marred by a lengthy stoppage following Joel Catesby's nasty-looking injury and, although substitute Justin Clarke's cross forced an own goal from Joe Wright to reduce arrears, the hosts restored their four-goal cushion through an Alex Pattison header from point-blank range. On an evening when a crowd of 4,170 were watching on, spare a thought for those 64 Evertonians who, like their first-team manager, witnessed the carnage.

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