Everton Must Save Adam Aznou This Summer

Everton full-back Adam Aznou's development is stalling, and it's up to the club to prevent him from having another pointless season.

Aznou made the move to the Toffees last summer, joining the club on a four-year contract from Bayern Munich. The then-19-year-old was a highly-rated left-back coming off the back of a loan spell with Real Vallodolid. 

The aim in many Evertonians eyes was for him to play second fiddle to Vitalii Mykolenko, giving opportunities here and there. Unfortunately, that never materialised, and he failed to play a single minute in the Premier League. 

In reality, his treatment has been dreadful. Should he be starting every single week? Probably not. But to suggest he's not worth for a single minute is disrespectful to the player. 

It was an exciting move for Aznou at the time. The Moroccan international was clearly going to struggle to make it at Bayern Munich, so opted to take the brave move at the age of 19 to move to England and play in the Premier League. 

Aznou tested himself in La Liga, playing a reasonable about for Real Valladolid, and clearly felt he was ready to make the move. 

Aznou might not have been expecting to start every week, but he must have been expecting to be given a fair chance. 

Speaking when he signed, Aznou said:

"The project they gave me is really good. The Premier League is the best league in the world so I'm really excited to start."

The young left-back was clearly sold the dream, but all that's happened is he's wasted a whole season of his career. 

Aznou must have been clucking to just get a substitute appearance in the Premier League, but he's geniunely just been given a free season ticket instead.

The club now need to make a decision on Aznou, and it has to be with his best interests in mind only. There's every chance Moyes will want to keep him as an emergency backup if Everton fail to sign a new left-back, but we can't be keeping him at the club. 

Aznou needs to be playing football. He's had a taste of senior football in La Liga and now needs to be playing regularly in order to develop. The 20-year-old can't have another season of not playing. 

Moyes might feel that Aznou is now ready to increase his game time, but he's still likely to benefit more from being sent out on loan. 

The club simply can't risk keeping him around and Moyes not playing him again. This is a talented youngster who deserves an opportunity. 

Even if it means signing a left-back on a free transfer to play as a backup to Mykolenko. Realistically, if Mykolenko gets injured, Moyes is likely to prefer the likes of Jarrad Branthwaite and James Garner there, as we saw last season. 

Everton's handling of young talents needs to improve. Tyler Dibling is the obvious other case. We're seeing young talents failing to develop after investing in them, and it's preventing the club from heading in the right direction. 

If you're going to go all in on getting Europe and achieve that, you can maybe justify your reasonings for not playing the likes of Aznou and Dibling, but to finish 13th in the Premier League while also failing to develop young talents, questions need to be asked.