🔵 Royal Blue: The players stepping up to become Everton's new leaders

I had the fortune of spending the weekend in Hamburg as Everton’s pre-season moved to Germany.

It was a good few days - with a bespoke Bongo’s Bingo and Q&A involving Graham Stuart and Phil Jagielka on the St Pauli waterfront on Friday night followed by the double header at the tremendous Volksparkstadion. As you no doubt know, Everton’s men and women’s sides both won.

There were positives to take for both. Scott Phelan’s team featured a host of new arrivals for their first friendly and Noemie Mouchon, the striker signed from Leicester City, looked a handful.

Club captain Megan Finnigan did not get onto the pitch but did make the bench in a huge boost for the side after she missed last season with a devastating ACL injury.

A short while later, after a lunch of pretzels and cake in the press room and a catch up with Babak Milani, Bild’s Hamburg reporter who happens to be an Everton supporter (he fell in love with them while watching the FA Cup win in 1984 and was in Rotterdam for the Cup Winners’ Cup final the following year), it was the turn of David Moyes’ side.

This was not a perfect display as the Blues entered the second half of their pre-season schedule but there were genuine signs to offer optimism - Merlin Rohl and Thierno Barry continued their good summer form, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall had his best game of the off-season and Jarrad Branthwaite and Hayden Hackney picked up more minutes to continue their rehabilitation from the injuries that disrupted the end of their season.

Listen: I share my thoughts from Hamburg on Radio Merseyside

Where Everton struggled was in central midfield but concerns over the defensive elements of that unit were addressed by the news the club was close to a deal for Christian Norgaard just as the need for a player like him was being highlighted on the pitch before me.

There are plenty of reasons to believe the Denmark international could be an astute signing (I detail them here) and one of them is the leadership the former Brentford captain should bring to the dressing room.

On that point, I spoke exclusively to Everton captain James Tarkowski on his role now that trusted veterans Idrissa Gueye and Seamus Coleman have left. He told me how his responsibility had increased but identified the leaders in the camp who are now stepping up ahead of the new season.

Our discussion is the main focus of this latest edition of the Royal Blue newsletter.