Everton will come up against a number of familiar faces when they take on Bolton Wanderers on Saturday afternoon. The Blues continue their preparations for the new season with a pre-season friendly at the Toughsheet Community Stadium.
After the trip to Bolton this weekend, the Blues face Stoke City away on Tuesday night before a double-header in Germany against Hamburger SV and VFB Stuttgart. However, when they arrive in Bolton, they will be greeted by a couple of lifelong supporters of the Blues.
Bolton's Everton connections
Wanderers are managed by former Everton Academy graduate Steven Schumacher and assisted by Mark Hughes, who came through the club’s youth ranks before making three senior appearances for the Blues under David Moyes. Richie Kyle is also another member of the Bolton coaching staff, who, as well as being a lifelong Blue, also worked at the club’s academy at the start of his coaching journey.
The Trotters are currently preparing for life in the Sky Bet Championship after securing promotion in the League One play-offs last season.
Kyle and Schumacher on the occasion
“To be honest, I heard rumours around February, and I remember telling Schu (Steven Schumacher) to push this, get this game,” Kyle told the Royal Blue podcast. “I kept saying Hill Dickinson, but we pushed Jonathan Williams (Everton club secretary and head of football operations) to get it done. But then I never heard anything about it until a few weeks ago and they said it was at Bolton and I wasn’t bothered in the end. But to play against Everton at Bolton, us being Evertonians, it will be a great occasion, and I know it is only a friendly, but it will be great. We are buzzing and we have all come across David in different ways. Mark played under David. Schu has come across him as well, and I’ve come across him in a coaching capacity when he was at West Ham. We would like to think there is a relationship, and Jonathan Williams has worked with us all at the club, and Neil Dewsnip is there as well, so I don’t know if he has had any input. It is going to be amazing for us.”
Asked what the Blues can expect from Bolton, Kyle replied: “We are in the midst of a recruitment drive at the moment, without going into loads of detail. We have lost some players with contracts running out and it is obviously a new level for us in terms of learning about new players. Coming across Everton, they are doing their recruitment as we speak. We are seeing some big names being linked with them. To be playing against them, we will try not to damage the new signings, but at the same point the game is important preparation for us going into the Championship.”
Schumacher on facing Moyes
After hanging up his boots, Schumacher returned to the Everton Academy, but this time in a coaching capacity before linking up with Ryan Lowe at Bury. “I'm looking forward to it,” he told The Bolton News. “I'm inundated with ticket requests, obviously all the Wanderers and Everton fans! It'll be a really good game, a tough test against top Premier League opposition who will test us in all departments. If we're not 100 per cent at it, if we make errors, as many as we did (at Oldham), then we'll get punished against better opposition. We are looking forward to it.”
And on coming up against Moyes, Schumacher revealed: “I’ve spoken to him loads of times in the years since I've left. He's obviously one of the most experienced managers that you could ever come across. Anything that he's got to say to you, little words of advice… The last time I saw him was at the Scotland-Ivory Coast game and we had a good chat then. He said he's somebody you can only wish to emulate because the amount of games at the top level that he's coached. I'm looking forward to seeing him and all of the coaching staff on Saturday. We will welcome them in, but obviously we're trying to do a good job against them as well.”
