Frank Lampard, the manager who brought Dwight McNeil to Everton this summer acknowledged in his pre-match press conference that “Improvement doesn’t happen in a straight line” and his words will be particularly poignant for the winger as Manchester United – the club where he spent almost a decade as a youngster – visit Goodison Park. The 22-year-old – who netted his first goal for the Blues to secure a 2-1 comeback victory at Southampton last weekend – is used to bouncing back in the face of adversity, establishing himself as a Premier League footballer at Burnley having been let go by his boyhood club when he was 14 and then earning his big £20million transfer to Merseyside on the back of relegation last season with the Clarets.
While McNeil’s father Matty, 46, a 6ft 5in centre-forward, was a professional player himself, turning out for a variety of lower division and non-League clubs across his native north west, the future Everton player reveals he also had some childhood heroes beyond the confines of the football pitch. A fan of the Marvel comic book characters, he likes Spiderman (he cites Tobey Maguire as his favourite) while he was also a fan of the singer Juice Wrld and it’s from one of the quotes from the late US rapper – famed for his association with the number 999, an inversion of 666 – that McNeil draws particular inspiration.
He said: “999 represents making whatever bad situation or whatever struggle you’re going through and turning it into something positive to push yourself forward.” Asked if it related to his release from Manchester United, McNeil said: “Yes, obviously it relates to life and I relate it to my life and also to football. I use this a lot, it reminds me.
