Where are they now?

[rabbikeane]

I've seen claims that only Manchester United and Arsenal has produced more of the current professional players in England than the Spurs academy. Real top quality seem to have been the issue more than quantity.
At least we've been pulling our weight for english football overall.
The current set up is clearly much better than it was just 8-10 years ago.

 

[Gbspurs]

I was really exited when we signed David Limbersky. Sure I read somewhere he was the "next pavel nedved" when we signed him. Good to see he made it though.

 

[nailsy]

Great work on the thread Jon .

 

[Banny]

Mark wright signed for For my local team Heybridge Swifts. Played two games then got bombed because he never turned up to training.

 

[VegasII]

That's pretty cool about Limbersky. To be fair, some of those Frankie Friday players are doing OK these days.

I think Mpoku was homesick so he wanted to go back to Belgium. Didn't we swap him for a player at Liege in the end?

 

[whitelightwhiteheat]

The sheer volume of players who come through the Academy offers a law of average that 99% of them won't make it! You're talking 20 players per age group, per season. There are 100s of players on the Academy books during any one season.

11 players in a first XI.... they'd have to be something special to make it. And the special ones do.

 

[Hoddle_Ledge]

Kieran McKenna

Retired through injury and is taking coaching badges.

He’s been the Loughborough University 1st team coach for the last couple of seasons. Nice guy

 

[DEFchenkOE]

When you look beyond the riches of the fist 18-20 players at most clubs it must be very difficult for the players in the club but are still more or less on the outside looking in as they desperately try to get contracts. We're definitely not the only club with so many released players that don't make the grade at a high level.

A good friend of mine was at QPR throughout our entire secondary school years, was a great player, I was sure he would make it but then QPR released him and he went to Lincoln (I used to always sign him on FM) and things didn't work out for him and now he's a bus driver. He's still a good player I play with him now and then but sometimes things just don't work out.

I think a lot of clubs take in lots of players in the hope that they find 1 or 2 players that can make the grade, just hard on players when they're released and don't know which direction to take next.

 

[m*****73]

Jondesouza - really impressive bit of research... well done.

That's dragged up a few names from the past.

Leigh Mills - how much did we pay Swindon for him?
Phil Ifil - alot of early promise. I had hopes that he'd make the grade eventually.
Emil Hallfredsson, Rodrigo Defendi, Spase Dilevski, David Limbersky, Dorian Dervite & Tomâš Pekhart - all solitary lessons regarding unrealistic expectations from young players poached from foreign leagues. I remember the activity on this forum following each of those signings - these players represented the future potential brought to us courtesy of our esteemed Director(s) of Football, Arnesen & Comolli....

 

[AngerManagement]

Jondesouza - really impressive bit of research... well done.

That's dragged up a few names from the past.

Leigh Mills - how much did we pay Swindon for him?
Phil Ifil - alot of early promise. I had hopes that he'd make the grade eventually.
Emil Hallfredsson, Rodrigo Defendi, Spase Dilevski, David Limbersky, Dorian Dervite & Tomâš Pekhart - all solitary lessons regarding unrealistic expectations from young players poached from foreign leagues. I remember the activity on this forum following each of those signings - these players represented the future potential brought to us courtesy of our esteemed Director(s) of Football, Arnesen & Comolli....

Well these players only represent a small percentage of the work done by those two

We shouldn't forget that they are also responsible for the signing of players like Berbatov, Modric and Bale while also being accountable for the likes of Bentley and Bent

 

[RichieS]

Greg Lake

Played alongside Emerson and Palmer at Radstock Town (Western League Premier / tier 9)

Please tell me that this is true!

 

[gp13tot]

What was the name of the Brazilian midfielder, possibly with an Italian passport, that played some friendlies for us under Hoddle i think it was? Some people were confident he'd be a great find back then. I can't remeber the lads name, help..........

As a coach of young players myself, it is so hard for the young lads to make it to the top unless they are incredibly special and most are of the athletic/physical type with smaller lads not getting a look in. And so much changes in their lives at this point in that it's no surprise that a lot of them don't make it. The amount who are not quite good enough/big enough, the amount who get mental or physical burnout, or simply just get led down the Father Jack Hackett road of temptations, and their talents are not capitalised on. For all the young players we have and the work we have put into this area, even with the coaching, the next gen series etc, many of them will not make it and end up at the level that many in recent years clearly have

(great whoring JDS )

A few thoughts, other than the opening gambit. If anyone knows the answers.........

Was it just paper talk, or did we pay £500,000+ for Malcolm and Price from Millwall? Hope so, hardly money well spent

Wasn't Leigh Mills hyped as a future england centre half at one point? Dunno by who, but i also remember seeing similar high praise about Ben Bowditch who we had for a while. I know this is commonplace in football (John Curtis - future Man U and England captain springs to mind) but when i was a lot younger i was susceptible to this kind of chat but without any behind the scenes knowledge and would get excited that the Freunds and Treacles of this world would be replaced by amazing world beating youngsters

Berchiche was announced on the OS. Now i don't read the OS much anymore, but surely this isn't the norm for a 'youth' transfer? So presumably the club expected big things from this kid? Another failed foreign yoof to add to mquinn73's list

On that point however, how long do you keep a player before deciding whether or not he has fulfilled his potential? I say this with Hallfredsson being linked to Premiership clubs recently, and Limbersky and Pekhart being in the Czech Euro squad.

Does our relatively recent no reserve/lower league loans system work better in developing young players? Would the above named have possibly thrived under this system and become first team squad members about now?

 

[rabbikeane]

What was the name of the Brazilian midfielder, possibly with an Italian passport, that played some friendlies for us under Hoddle i think it was? Some people were confident he'd be a great find back then. I can't remeber the lads name, help..........

Diego Bortolozzo

Seems he's had at least 7 clubs after us. Playing his trade in german lower league, been in belgium, luxembourg ..

 

[jondesouza]

A few thoughts, other than the opening gambit. If anyone knows the answers.........

Was it just paper talk, or did we pay £500,000+ for Malcolm and Price from Millwall? Hope so, hardly money well spent

I think we paid Charlton £450,000 for Price and Wycombe £10,000 plus add ons for Malcolm up to a max of about £500,000. I imagine we only spent the 10 grand!

Wasn't Leigh Mills hyped as a future england centre half at one point?

Only in the same way that Gerard McMahon was the next George Best and Danny Hill was the new Glenn Hoddle! Like you said in your post, there are so many variables with young players that it's not a surprise so few break through.

I was susceptible to this kind of chat but without any behind the scenes knowledge and would get excited that the Freunds and Treacles of this world would be replaced by amazing world beating youngsters

Ha. I'm still susceptible to this and I'm now 36.

Does our relatively recent no reserve/lower league loans system work better in developing young players? Would the above named have possibly thrived under this system and become first team squad members about now?

I'd say that, amongst other changes to how the Academy works, have made a major impact. That and that we've had a comparitively large number of very talented players come through the Academy in a small number of years.

 

[gp13tot]

Cheers Rabbi, thats the badger!

Sorry Jon, thought those lads came from Millwall. Either way, given the return, a small outlay would be the most appropriate!

 

[eddiebailey]

I am not sure if our Academy is improving or not; it tends to go through phases, sometimes with whole intakes being discarded if the next lot look more promising.

After producing Clemence, Young and King in fairly quick succesion (as well as Thelwell and Crouch) there were then two or three lean years with only Jackson as a realistic prospect, though Piercy might have built a career but for injury, Toner lingered in the bottom tier, and Fortune did okay-ish after being released as a trainee.

But when George Graham arrived he put much emphasis on the Academy and was very excited by the intake that included Kelly, Marney, Barnard, Henry, Burch, Hughes, Sutton and the injury plagued Bowditch. Hoddle, foreshadowing his later role as a would-be resurrector of young careers, also offered contracts to six or seven of the next intake, though only Yeates and Foster were to succeed in making careers in the professional game. The following year though was completely barren, with McKenna, the best bet, dropping out through injury, and Price and Malcolm completely failing to live up to the hype.

Pleat on taking over as caretaker had a big clear out, to make way for a graduating intake including O'Hara, Daniels, Barcham, Lee, Forecast and the bizarrely underachieving Ifil. From the subsequent batch only Dawkins, Lewis and Maghoma emerged (the much hyped Mills being a notable flop), and the next two or three seasons produced just a trickle of talent: Martin, Davis, who looked the nuts before being injured, Archibald-Henville, Livermore, Button and the ill-starred Dixon.

On Harry's arrival he retained only Livermore and Button, though Dawkins was to make a somewhat surprising comeback. His hopes rather were placed on the then emerging 2007 and 2008 intakes. From 2007 Townsend, Mason, Smith and Obika are all still with us, but at this stage any of them will be doing well to achieve as much as Kelly or O'Hara; while Kasim, Butcher and Cox are all struggling to build careers in the professional game. Of the 2008 batch Caulker is emerging as the best prospect since King, while Carroll and M'poku, now at Standard Liege, are doing well enough; but Bostock, Parrett, Byrne and Nicholson are all struggling to make an impact.

From 2009 Kane is looking good, but it is too early to call on Fredericks, Pritchard, Lancaster or the young keepers; while of the 2010 intake only Stewart, Barthram and Munns have been offered professional contracts, with the Dutch lad Ekong being retained as a third year trainee. That might argue that we have high hopes for the next intake, but it could simply be that the Academy lads are being crowded out by the large number of very young overseas professionals we have been bringing in.

At our level it is probably unrealistic to expect a significant proportion of the squad to be home homegrown, but Livermore and Button are holding up well, and Caulker and Kane in particular look prospects; so while I doubt that the Academy is improving in terms of the number of professionals being produced, we might perhaps hold out hope of turning up a gem or two in the next couple of seasons.

 

[Spursidol]

In general terms think the academy is doing a lot better than say 10 years ago - the turning point probably being the arrival of Aanesen (who I think did a total policy rethink on youth for Levy) and the arrival of McDermott and Inglethorpe a year or so after. That is not to minimise the role played by people like Pleat (who persuaded Levy to invest in Davies, Etherington, Gardner, Doherty etc to demonstrate developing players from the lower leagues was anther way to enhance the academy) and others such as Jol who brought in a 'skills coach', Ricardo Moritz, who's legacy is still being taught by the current coaching staff. A good way to see the change in ethos is to hear the modern youth coaches saying that winning games is not particularly significant for say 17 year olds - its how they play. Ten years ago winning at any age was all !

Problem of course in 'measuring' the Academy is that a player coming through the Academy takes years - Caulker joined at 15/16 and its only now we can see that he is potentially a top player, whilst some of the others have been at Spurs since the age of 9, an even longer time period to measure success over. Also the 'turning point' really happened over a couple of years - so whilst I would suggest that Livermore anf Button are some of the last players of the 'old' academy' and Caulker/Townsend are the first of the 'new' style acdemy its a very crude definition.

The big problem in measuring the Academy/youth system is the arithmetic - there are currently 25 players in the first team squad and 15 new academy players each year, so if you assume a players 'life' is say 12 years, it means that if EVERY Spurs first team player was eventually brought through the academy then on average only about 1 player from every intake (out of 15) could possibly make it ! Maybe that bit of maths by itself helps explan why over the laszt 10 years so few players have come through the Academy since King. It also demonstrates why Spurs losing either a whole Academy Year or alll but one or two should not be seen as a failure - on the contrary promoting two players a year into the first team (even oif one of thise leaves after a couple of years as they are not quite good enough) should be seen as a big success.

But the reason why the Academy/Youth system can be said to be working much better now is that Livermore and Walker (brought in and developed on loan) came into the squad last season and realistically Caulker, Townsend, Smith and Button could come into the reckoning next season (2012/13), whilst Kane, Luongo and several others (likely to be from Pritchard, Fredericks et al) could be on the first team fringes in 2013/14 and the likes of Veljkovic, Stewart, Barthram, Gomelt and Coulibally in 2014/15. Of course some of the latter players will drop out of the reckoning (much as Parrett's footballing development seems to have slowed dramatically over the last 3 years ago - before then he looked excellent) but others could easily step up to take their place. Suddenly there are a lot of realistic contenders each year to join the first team which was not true 5 years ago.

One area not to ignore is that hitherto there has been a big gap in worthwhile football games for players between the ages of 18 and 21 - that is starting to change with a combination of :

• Loans to Football league clubs (however think that outlet is pretty saturated and think Spurs will probably only loan maybe 8 or 10 players in future seasons
• NextGen competition for under 19's
• Under 21 League

These will help to continue to provide young footballers with a worthwhile challenge and aid there development - IMO Spurs will also use Europa League next season to help continue develop a few of the best young players.

 

[spursandbarca]

didnt we pay 500k for dean parrett and more than that for bostock? neither one is going to make it

 

[jimtheyid]

I remember when everyone was wanking themselves silly over Leigh Mills.

 

[al_pacino]

Danny Hutchins

Played for Dunstable Town (Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division / tier 9) and Arlesey Town (Southern League Premier Division / tier 7) during the last season.

And seen on the back of the local paper

http://www.hemelfc.com/news/new-signings-for-hemel-589812.html