Trying to impress in your first real season of professional football is a daunting task for any talented youngster, and for Josh Bowler, opportunities have been hard to come by.
The 20-year-old Everton winger joined Hull City on loan for the season following an impressive two seasons with the Toffees’ development side in Premier League 2.
But despite winning the affection of Everton U-23 manager David Unsworth, who admitted to the club’s official website via The Boot Room that he sees big things for Bowler in the future, the former QPR youngster has yet to get the ball rolling in the Championship with the Tigers.
As numbers from Transfermarkt show, the winger has only managed 204 minutes of football over the course of six games for Grant McCann’s side.
Yet despite this lack of action on the pitch, the Hull manager recently praised Bowyer via The Hull Daily Mail, with the Championship boss saying: “Josh is a very, very good player. I think if the fans could see him they’d be surprised by how good he really is.”
McCann also admitted that Bowler scored a hat-trick for Hull’s reserve side in a thrilling 9-2 win, yet despite impressing in a behind-closed-doors fixture and winning plaudits from the first-team manager, the Everton youngster has seemingly made a mistake heading to the Championship side for the season.
Indeed, we are now entering October, and for all the praise Bowler’s received and his impressive achievements in a reserve game, the fact still stands that the youngster is yet to break into the Hull first-team, with the Chertsey-born winger only making two starts as numbers from Transfermarkt show.
There is no denying that Bowler is capable of playing at Championship level, yet in this early stage of his career, what the winger needs more than anything is consecutive first-team minutes, not sporadic appearances off the bench.
For all the talent Bowler has, it is wasted at Hull where the right-sided winger is the clear number two for the position behind the prolific Jarrod Bowen, and a move to a club where the 20-year-old would be guaranteed regular football would have been the more sensible option for the Everton attacker.