Goodison Park has not provided fertile ground for the growth of young players in recent years.
The merry-go-round of managers, the shifts in styles and continued underachievement of the team has prompted divisions at Everton.
And typically when these cracks open up, it's the tyros that fall through.
Managers who are under pressure to succeed quickly rarely turn to young players to propel them out of trouble, nor are they as willing to put up with the short-term pain for potential long-term gain these rising stars can bring.
Doing so with a trigger-happy owner at the helm may cost them their job.
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It's a reason why capricious talents like Ademola Lookman and Nikola Vlasic failed at Everton. The ability was there, although the consistency in their game nor the stability of leadership was not.
The time to invest in either signing was lacking, with Everton unable to think too far into the future.
But for some rare cases, adversity can be galvanising.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin was frequently flogged as a lone and isolated forward earlier in his Everton career, tasked with bounding after launched passes into the channels.
In the main, he did a fine job in that thankless role. He paid his dues, fine-tuned his game and is now arguably the most important footballer at the club.
While those methods are not a blueprint for young footballers to prosper, the striker is a rare example of progressive development for Everton since Farhad Moshiri's tumultuous ownership started almost six years ago.
There are signs Anthony Gordon might be the another.
For a young forward and passionate Evertonian, being part of the current squad must be challenging.
The team is lurching down the table, playing in a moribund manner and is frequently being berated by supporters for insipid performances.
Doubts over Rafael Benitez have come to the fore, intensifying what is an already high-pressure landscape in L4.
Yet in spite of this, Gordon has made strides.
In the 3-2 loss to Brighton & Hove Albion, the 20-year-old put the team on his shoulders.
Gordon won a penalty, scored twice and came close to grabbing an equaliser and a hat-trick late on.
Instead of being dragged down by the current mess at the football club, Gordon has flourished.
His physicality and stamina has improved, while his belief in possession is building every time he dons the royal blue shirt.
In an ideal world, Everton wouldn't be putting such a heavy burden on a player who is still in the infancy of his career. But injuries and under performance have made it a case of necessity for Benitez.
When Everton failed to replace Romelu Lukaku in the 2017 transfer window, the same was true of Calvert-Lewin.
He was a young attacking player given a tough task in a team set up to stifle rather than score.
There were times when Calvert-Lewin looked like he was set to be chewed up and spat out by the malfunctioning Everton machine, as so many other players have been.
But you sense those arduous times have contributed to the dominant forward he is today.
There's an earnest and rugged nature to his player indicative of someone who has had to scrap to get to where they are.
Should Gordon use the current testing circumstances as fuel in the same way his team-mate did, perhaps there is still at least one success story to salvage from this season yet.
