Antony Evans

If there’s a word to sum up March 2017 for Antony Evans, it’s bittersweet.

The 18-year-old’s loan club, Morecambe, went into the month on a run of just one defeat in 11 matches, form that saw boss Jim Bentley nominated for League Two’s manager of the month award.

However, March began with successive 3-1 defeats, first away to local rivals Blackpool and then at home against lowly Yeovil Town. The significance for Evans? He got both of the ‘ones’, netting his first senior goals in the process.

“On a personal note, it was great to get the goals but ideally I would’ve liked it to be under better circumstances,” reflects the youngster as he sits down with the Everton programme on a recent trip back to USM Finch Farm. “The first one against Blackpool was a bit of a goal mouth scramble, to be honest. It was a long ball in and our centre-half was up and he pinned the goalkeeper near enough. The ball’s hit him, fallen to me and I’ve struck it right down the middle as hard as I could.

“It did feel quite weird. I just hit it and you don’t necessarily expect it to go in. But then you look up and you see it smash the back of the net but, because of the score [Morecambe were already 3-0 down], I just had to grab the ball and run back to the centre circle to get the game going again. So I didn’t really have much time to think about it but it was obviously a great moment.