‘You just knew right away that he had everything you expect in a top player. I put him and Alan Shearer up there as the best there have ever been in the Premier League’: Duncan Ferguson on playing alongside a young Wayne Rooney

Duncan Ferguson celebrating a goal with a teammate while wearing an Everton jersey.

It was back in the late 90s and early 2000s that talk of a prodigiously talented striker in the Everton youth team began to emerge from Merseyside.

Rising through the Toffees’ ranks was a player who had netted more than 100 goals in a single season for under-11s and had broken into their under-19s side as a 15-year-old.