- Oct 3, 2011
- 14,133
- 38,225
I like a lot of what you post but do feel that you try too hard not to give Poch credit for certain things:
No fair minded person should disagree with the fact that Kane was pushed became the star he has under Poch. Similarly we know how Mason feels about Poch. Nabil came in under Timmy but was really given full responsibility under Poch (I still think sadly back to the positive Poch Nabil moment after Harry's NL winner from Nabil's cross.....if only he'd been better advised on the contract stuff). Walker and Rose became much better players. Winks was being talked about as starter for club and country before his injuries - again Poch's good work. And there are others.
Has he made mistakes - 100% - he is human. For instance Josh O losing time to Sissoko. Aurier being signed and taking time from KWP. Those are the biggest for me.
It is also interesting that he gets so much credit outside the club for young English talent we have bought and improved (Alli and Dier) but that is seem as distinct from the youth efforts.
poch has taken kane on a level(though we will never know how he'd have done under another manager) but it was sherwood who got the ball rolling and that's arguably the hardest part. if kane was coming through now alongside onomah, kwp etc his development would have been very different, likewise had those two been allowed out on loan from age 17/18 they might be in a far better position than they currently find themselves in. ultimately we'll never know and it's open to debate but i reckon players on a path similar to kane's will yield a greater return over time than the way we do things under pochettino.
Having just read that Chelsea have 31 (yes 31!) players on loan and I suspect earning in the region of £40m + (guess based on Danny Ings costing Southampton £2m for his loan from Liverpool). Also Man City have also 20+ players out on loan. I have looked at our squad and to be honest we would struggle to send out more than 6 (that is to decent clubs and standard). I was thinking of Janssen, Nkoudoh, Carter-Vickers, Amos, Georgiou and Ogilvie. The rest are either not ready, problematic (Edwards) or not good enough. Also Chelsea will still do well at U23 level (they reached the Check-a-trade final last year) and continue to dominate Youth football in this country. Spurs are just not competing in this very lucrative loan system market but more importantly our strength in depth is really questionable.
what level do you define as decent? league 1 or even league 2 loans can still be greatly beneficial, just look at amos who via four months at a league 2 club has gone from drifting in the u23s to being on the first team fringes. i think we have a few outside of those names you listed who could do well at that level, that's how the previous generation(kane, pritchard, carroll, townsend, caulker etc) got started.