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The Spurs Youth Thread - 2018/19

IGSpur

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Jan 11, 2013
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Eek! didn’t realise I was being contentious - sorry!

I suppose I just thought KWP has been training with the first team squad, even though he hasn’t had a lot of game time, but didn’t think he was either training or playing with the dev squad any more - but maybe I’m wrong about that. Did he play u23s last season? If not, in effect he’s a first team squad member.

Na you're right, he doesn't train with the development squad, but I know players can move up and down depending on their standing.

E.g. he was training with the first team a while ago, and got dropped back down to the development squad. He then got moved back to first team, some time last year, someone can correct me. So it appears to be quite fluid.
 

mickeybaz

Well-Known Member
Mar 13, 2007
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He’s definitely a first team player as is Onomah now.


Not enough time for me to trawl through all the training photos, but I haven't noticed Onomah, TOB, KWP or Edwards - have i missed them, do they have extended leave, are they at a junior tournament or...... ?
 

Hengy1

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Aug 7, 2014
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Not enough time for me to trawl through all the training photos, but I haven't noticed Onomah, TOB, KWP or Edwards - have i missed them, do they have extended leave, are they at a junior tournament or...... ?
Onomah & KWP are there. Assuming the others are with the development squad
 

IGSpur

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Jan 11, 2013
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Given this, I believe what happens with three of our brightest young talents, who are now 20-21 years old and have trained with the first team for a couple of seasons, will have a huge impact on how the younger players in our Academy decide to progress their careers.

Without rehearsing all the reasons why they were Academy standouts, Josh Onomah (21), Kyle Walker-Peters (21) and Cameron Carter-Vickers (now a full American international at the age of 20, without ever appearing in the PL), are embarking on a crucial season.

They are already having an impact mate. These youngsters will have seen how good our players are parents and players will also talk. I have spoken to a youth player once, who alluded to the fact that some of the players in the first team weren't taht ogod a while ago. Dev squad players will train with the first team eveyr now and then and will be able to compare their mates abilities with first teamers, and will draw their own opinions about who is better. If they don't think they are getting fair chances, they will speak. The development of those 3 and Edwards will be watched very carefully by parents and agents. They will know how good they are and what they have acheived in youth football and think if thye can't get chances why stick around.

That is likely why Madueke went, it will be why Bennetts went, heck even Kirby went. And as I've mentioned before I saw one of our talented now u15 players commenting on a post about Sancho playing in the Bundesliga and how it is a good route. We may be able to do some damage control by bringing another through. But to lose Madueke, who would have been the standout of the new intake , England's best CM in his age group, and as a posted a few years back was one of the two highest rated players in the academy, (allocated the highest grade possible) PLUS Kirby who was described by a former Spurs and Chelsea coach as one of the 2 best players he has seen at academy level will be pretty big hits already. That's not even taking into account Bennetts who was one of the standout players this season. These guys will all know how good someone like Edwards is, and probably wouldn't fancy risking it here.

As I've said before though, if we intend to buy quality and just use the academy as a way to make money as we don't think they will be up to scratch then I'm sure the club, and fans won't really care if they leave anyway. It's not like we will pick up massive fees on them, unless they are given proper exposure, which they don't really get here.


So, I believe it's crucial that the club demonstrates that it is giving Josh, KWP and CCV every chance to continue their development. For me, this means that if they impress sufficientily in pre-season, they become proper members of the squad, getting real opportunities (eg KWP as one of 4, not 5, FB/WBs, Josh getting time in CM not a couple of minutes as a wide AM).
As usual that is very subjective. As @Bus-Conductor mentioned, it's easy to for a striker to prove himself. What would Onomah for example need to do to sufficiently impress the manager to stop him buying another average player to block him? It's all a matter of opinions and unless Onomah is going to run around like Modric, which he's not as he isn't World Class it will leave open enough reason to not play him as he won't be 'better than what we have'.


If on the other hand Poch and our coaches are not prepared to trust them with meaningful squad places, then we need to secure loans that will offer the best chance of their playing regularly in footballing teams. Ie strategic loans, which will genuinely help the player develop and give him a better chance of breaking through in a season's time.

Agree if we aren't going to use them we need to find ways to maximise their value so we can increase our finances and put more money towards wages or transfer fees to sign actual World Class players.

I believe that if we can demonstrate that we are looking after the Onomah/KWP/CCV generation, and helping them grow and become better footballers through carefully judged loans if necessary, then some of the talented youngsters listed in the OP may also continue with us into their late teens & 20s, rather than opting to move abroad like Keanan Bennetts.

As said people are already starting to make their decisions. If you have confidence in your ability and believe you can make it, and you're 17/18 are you going to stick around for 3 years doing training when you know you could be abroad actually playing football. If players are willing to take an ego hit and drop down a league, and try and work their way back up to a top 6 club then it will eb the best option. I think a big reason players stay here is a our name and status. They know that if they are that 1% they will have experienced playing first team for a CL club even if they are ultimately not good enough to maintain it, and may never reach that level if they left. Players like Mason, Townsend, Caulker, Carroll etc who served a great purpose with us and earned us money will liekly never play for a club of our level again, but can say they have experienced it. Though a lot of their development was stifled it is still a great achievement in their career. It's one big incentive we have.
 

LexingtonSpurs

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Aug 27, 2013
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We still doing the white socks/dark socks to distinguish players?

Just noticed in the outdoor training photos - CCV has dark socks, but so too does Llorente (and Pochettino...)
 

IGSpur

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Jan 11, 2013
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We still doing the white socks/dark socks to distinguish players?

Just noticed in the outdoor training photos - CCV has dark socks, but so too does Llorente (and Pochettino...)

I'm not sure, I was something I was told ages ago that seemed to hold true. We might have to wait til the new season actually starts to get an idea.
 

LexingtonSpurs

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Aug 27, 2013
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I'm not sure, I was something I was told ages ago that seemed to hold true. We might have to wait til the new season actually starts to get an idea.
It appears to hold true - with Llorente being the lone exception. And, even though Llorente had dark socks, they were not the same as the development squad players. I thought it was odd for CCV, because I thought he was considered a 1st team player before he went out on loan - may be an early indication that he will be headed out again - presumably after the US tour.
 

Blake Griffin

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Oct 3, 2011
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It appears to hold true - with Llorente being the lone exception. And, even though Llorente had dark socks, they were not the same as the development squad players. I thought it was odd for CCV, because I thought he was considered a 1st team player before he went out on loan - may be an early indication that he will be headed out again - presumably after the US tour.

the "youth" players are also wearing a different training kit. theirs has a solid purple line going down the shoulders/sleeves and with black shorts whilst the first teamers have that purple effect thing on the arms and purple shorts.
 
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Blake Griffin

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Oct 3, 2011
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our 2nd years beat forest 5-0, though it seems parrott played up with them as he got 2. markanday, a.shashoua and maghoma got the others.
 

Westmorlandspur

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Feb 1, 2013
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Tanganga confirmed in euro under 19 squad for the euros. Nya Kirby also in Tom Bayliss of Coventry with first call up. Foden Sancho Mount and Sessegnon not released by clubs. Possibly they don’t need to be playing in this age group may be in the under 21’s when the season gets going.
 

IGSpur

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Jan 11, 2013
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On the back of a good (and rather unexpected) World Cup you would have thought that just maybe the clubs would get behind the England program. Not so, much to my anger. England have just announced their U19 squad for the UEFA U19 Championship starting today. What has happened is that England have announced basically a reserve team (including 3 who have never played for England at any level). We have some really good players at this level who should be playing, not just for the honour, but for valuable tournament experience. But of course English clubs have not released some players (strangely those with foreign managers - with some notable exceptions). In fact I can reel off 9 certain starters with ease :- Mason Mount, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Phil Foden. Jadon Sancho, Ryan Sessegnon, Reiss Nelson, Eddie Nketiah , Reece James and Joe Willock. Others like Andre Dozzell are injured but to say these nine are injured is clearly not true. I could mention others who have appeared regularly in the squad this past year such as Morgan Gibbs-White, Flynn Downes, Trystan Nydam, Keanan Bennetts and Ben Wilmott who are not in the squad. Absolutely shameful from our clubs and shame on the FA to let them get away with it.


Tbf I don't think the issue is the managers I think it's the scheduling. Going on tours and playing preseason will give an 18/19 year old more chances of appearing for the first team next season than it would if they played youth international football. We've seen that even when players come back from winning tournaments it doesn't help their chances of getting into the first team, so the best chance is going on tour, though, even then the chance of getting through is slim. But overall I think the experience is better. It would be better if good performances on tour actually helped their chances, but as a player you can't blame them for snapping up the opportunity rather than going away on an international football tournament, even though it might be a great experience.

The real issue is why they make the u19 Euros , an age where players will seriously start looking to play for the first team, clash with first team preseason, while the u17 Euros is played during April. If they did it the other way round it would mean that in April we'd know which u19 players are actually playing football. There won't be 20 odd, playing serious first team football, whereas the 20 or so players missing will happily be taken around clubs on meaningless friendlies while the first teamers are on holiday. If the u17 Euros was in July then no one is missing out as 16/17 year olds will not be going on preseason tours. Despite their being a load of players missing, so the u19s and some of the u18s that would have supplemented it, there is still a good squad going, and it shows the depth of the system that Bayliss can come in, and show his ability when he otherwise might not have got a chance until next year, when he would start overtaking the players he is currently not seen as better than, as he will be playing first team football, while they are stuck in the academies.

I agree it is frustrating though, as you say we have the u20 World Cup and I'd expect us to win that years, but my understanding from checking other forums are that other countries are experiencing a similar problem, so really comes down to a test of depth, and getting them to gel quickly. I have faith we'll get to the semis, even though as we say we are missing almost 20 99s alone, let alone the 00s that could have contributed.

Also strangely I don't remember this happening for the 2016 tournament that basically had it's strongest squad. Though IIRC TAA had been pulled out and I guess he benefited from that in the end.

Tanganga confirmed in euro under 19 squad for the euros. Nya Kirby also in Tom Bayliss of Coventry with first call up. Foden Sancho Mount and Sessegnon not released by clubs. Possibly they don’t need to be playing in this age group may be in the under 21’s when the season gets going.

I think it says a lot about Kirby's ability that despite injury and contract dispute which resulted in him missing out on his age group's CM spot for a while, he is called up to the age group above for a big tournament as one of 3 00s. I assume McEachran must be injured or on preseason, but if not Kirby seems to have jumped him, after he has played so well for the last year. It will be good to watch Kirby properly again to see how he has developed. Follows on nicely from my post earlier, about how big a loss he was.

I know some of you on this site are not bothered but the one thing I do know Spurs, to their credit, have always released their young players.

Following on from my previous post about Kirby. Skipp has not been called up to the Euros tournament, despite having an excellent year, which I think ended up in him being recalled to some England games last season. And while I know they player very slightly different positions this raises a couple of points
a) Despite Skipp having an excellent season, that Kirby despite his setback has managed to jump past old teammate in the eyes of the selectors.
b)It's hard to really judge what we would and wouldn't do as we only have 2 players that would seriously be considered for that team. Tanganga and Skipp. First question is, is Tanganga there as we thought it was valuable for him, or because we weren't planning on taking him anywhere. And second question is was Skipp overtaken by Kirby or did we just not release him. He is currently training with the first team after all, and justifiably so, which would contradict your point above. Saying that we had reports saying he won't be going on tour, didn't we? and he won't be in the first team so who knows
c)It shows that maybe other clubs do care about the tournament. Kirby was on tour with Palace, where he was getting good reviews and is now in the squad despite Palace still being on tour. This either suggests that Roy doesn't rate him, or Roy has seen enough of him and understands the benefits of him playing in a competitive tournament
 

IGSpur

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Jan 11, 2013
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Also, unless he is injured, it shows how far Shashoua has fallen behind in selectors minds that he can't get a call up in a severeley depleted squad. I know some rate him higher than Edwards, but it shows how our handling of him in the last year has been really poor when he is by all accounts an excellent trainer, whereas even the 'pain in the ass' Edwards was still getting called up.

Shashoua is still a really quality player and he did well in that age group before, I hope he plays a lot more next season. Another way to look at it is that England has incredible depth
 

IGSpur

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Jan 11, 2013
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Our u18s are in Belgium btw

Yes thanks mate.

Our u15s play their first game in 4 hours and there is a stream for those interested.

Annoyingly, this game may be called off due to a storm
 

George94

George
Feb 1, 2015
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I said last season that I expect us to cash in on Edwards this summer, and I think this hints towards it actually happening.

Says a lot if he's going with the development squad instead of the first team, when half our squad is missing because of the World Cup.
 

IGSpur

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Jan 11, 2013
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The pitch is being looked at. Looks OK but think it's cos it's astro so no puddles. It looks like it's still raining but there way the coaches are you wouldn't be able to tell, no umbrellas or anything. Balls seem to be rolling around fine. Shocking that they have the Arsenal badge next to our name in the graphics, what a booboo.
 
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