Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Wycombe Wanderers

Different era - not sure there are many comparisons to be made. And it was known that he would be a first team player. He only played a handful of games anyway.

 

In this day and age, Prem sides are too unwilling at giving youth a chance, especially another club's youth player. Onomah and CCV could go to League One or Championship sides and do well but it won't do their chances here any good and then realistically the chances of getting a Prem side to take a chance on them is too slim, there's now too much at stake financially to trust a young a player these days. It's why we're truly lucky to have such a gifted manager who's able to make youth players step up to the first team as if they've played in it for years, credit goes to John McDermott too for getting them to such a level.

Winks hasn't had a single loan and yet is near enough a fully fledged first team squad member already. Bentaleb prior to his injuries was another who had no loan spells, things went bad for him 15/16 and he eventually lost his spot but he was someone we were all raving about during his first 18 months in the first team, now he's doing really well for Schalke in which they're likely to pay circa £16m for him to keep him.

Kane, Mason, Livermore all had spells at lower league, with moderate-to-low success and never came back with any better prospects of first team football. Kane even then got a loan to Norwich yet could barely get a game in the Prem so that was a waste. Eventually these players impressed their current managers to the point where they were given chances in our first team and they all done well to certain levels, with obviously Kane going on to be a superstar.

The likes of CCV, Winks, Onomah etc are much better off staying here and learning from some of the best players in their respective positions while also ensuring their footballing development is "the spurs way".

 

The thing with Beckham's loan to Preston is that it was a short-term loan and not for the whole season - and even then he was recalled early.

In comparison, the only times we recall players from loans early is because they're injured, i.e. Kane at Norwich

 

Kane broke his metatarsal at Norwich, which was why he didn't play much for them.

 

It's also Kane's fault that he didn't play much in his subsequent loan at Leicester, given he was apparently picking the starting xi...

 

And yet these very same PL clubs were the last port of call for nearly every player I mentioned.

I am happy for the Academy to decide who is going to benefit from loans or not,
but to deny that the method has not reaped rewards for the senior squad again
is IMHO dogma.

 

He spent about 4-5 months with them before we recalled him and his injury kept him out for about 6 weeks, either side of the injury he barely played.

 

Difficult for any aspiring striker to get game time in the most attackingest side ...
in the world. Ever.

 

And of those you mentioned, only two were genuine successes in Rose and Walker. The others made up the numbers for a period but that was all.

Besides, those very same Prem clubs will no longer take the risk of loaning young players due to the financial aspects these days. From this season onwards, TV money roughly nets you £80m alone per year, therefore no Prem club in their right mind would take Onomah/ CCV on loan right now, they'd rather spend £10m-£20m on a proven AM/ CB and who can blame them?
It's why I'd rather our best prospects be kept here instead of loaned out at lower levels where they just won't benefit, all they'll do is become accustomed to a lower level standard of football

Those we feel are likely not to make it into the first team or even those we're 50-50 on, I can understand loaning out, because if they do well it can potentially boost chances of first team involvement or just put themselves in the shop window for us to make a profit on. But those the club feels are of a level where they can make it, like Winks/ CCV/ Onomah/ Edwards, I'd much rather they be kept here and have them learn from the first team in training along with spells in cup matches/ Prem cameos with the aim to push on like Kane did.

 

These arent youth players though, they are senior players.

 

Footballers need to play football.

Winks will stay because he is already a first choice match day 18 player.

CCV, Edwards and Onomah are not, and would benefit from playing elsewhere.

Imo.

 

Fantastic game. I'm sorry for Wycombe, who were brilliant. Beautiful salute to Mason. Great we had the fight to come back twice, especially when we were down to 10 men. I love how Pochettino seems determined to be first rate in what he says and uphold high standards. On the other hand, we've been poor in almost every cup game, including most of the CL games, when we fielded a strong lineup. It seems the players and perhaps Pochettino are focused on the League. It's understandable, I think, in a year when we once again might be the best team in the league. This game it's not a surprise the team we picked didn't do very well, given they can't have played much together--but the way they came out, walking slowly and showing no energy whatsoever, amounted to rolling out a red carpet with the words "Come on into the game, Wycombe!" That shouldn't happen again.

This was a poor game for a number of players and a good one for others. Son continues to show he deserves to be a near-starter. He's not a striker, but he creates good opportunities and can finish. Despite a very ragged game, and one moment where he lost composure, I was impressed with Winks, who IMO accounted for a good share of our determination. Janssen was helped, I think, by being asked to come in and turn a game, not to try to be nearly as good as Kane. I feel bad for Sissoko, who had a couple of really good games and promptly got lost in the mix when three at the back worked for us.

I'm not sure anyone we could buy at this point would be able to help us much this season. Almost all our recent buys have needed at least a year to be successful--apparently because it's hard to learn how to play the way Pochettino wants. I'd be tempted to go for a fast left FB, though. Davies was my choice over Wimmer to come in as a left CB. He would be the fourth player in the three who can also play FB. We'll see. In any case, I really enjoyed this game. Let's hope we can get back to our best in the League. We need to.

 

I do agree in theory that players need to play in order to improve but I don't think players need to play at an inferior level for them to suddenly be good enough here.

In my opinion, our best youngsters, the ones we have highest hopes for, need to stay and continue their development/ education "the spurs way" and break through into the team via hard work in training and impressing in cameos, like what Winks has already began to do. Going to inferior surroundings will just make them accustomed to different tactics, techniques and styles which likely won't benefit them on returning to Spurs.

We're in a brilliant but also tricky situation in that our academy is the best it's ever been in the Premier League era, arguably ever. Credit goes to John McDermott and co, plus the likes of Sherwood and Ramsay who also put good time into development players when they were here and not forgetting Poch and his staff for trusting youth, but some of these players have developed so well that I feel they're somewhat already too good to just go off and play lower down the leagues for the sake of game time.

I found these quotes from Poch on a 'london.football' article, admittedly I'm not sure how accurate this site is but similar comments have been said on other media outlets and it's something I really do agree with:

"No, no. I think it's clear that Josh is a potential first team player like Cameron Carter-Vickers and Harry Winks, like all the young players in our academy," he said.

"The way to improve is training with us and trying to show us that he deserves to be involved. In that moment, you can be sure that we will give him the opportunity to play and show his quality.

"So no, we are not thinking about selling or loaning him out."

 

I'd argue that the best the academy has been was 5 or 6 years ago.

The best players in the academy team then were Carroll and Pritchard, who for the most part followed your model of staying at Spurs and kicking their heals.

One's now finally moved to another team albeit one in a relegation battle, and the other's a part time player in the Championship.

 

Carroll should've been sold immediately after his loan spell at Swansea. His stock has never been higher and we would've got around £12m for him. Selling Pritchard - a player with all of 25 minutes' top flight experience to his name - for £8m must surely be seen as a success story for the academy. It isn't going to produce first team regulars year on year (there's a limit to how many lads called 'Harry' we can find ), but at the very least, its products should have reached the requisite level whereby they can earn the club a nice wad of cash. So I see Townsend, Livermore, Mason, Pritchard, Caulker and probably Bentaleb come the summer as bittersweet successes. Bitter, because I'd have loved them to make it in the lilywhite shirt; but at the same time sweet because they cost the club nothing and brought in a combined £63m in transfer fees. To put it another way; without them, we wouldn't have been able to afford Sissoko . But on a serious note: is there another club in the country who has made as much from selling homegrown talent? I very much doubt it.

I get what you're saying about certain 'promising' players seemingly lingering for seasons on end despite showing no obvious signs of improvement. It is a weird one when you compare the likes Winks with Josh. I guess at the end of the day, lack of a loan infrastructure means that all judgments are made on the training ground. We see these guys for 90 minutes every 2 months. Poch sees them hours on end every week. Just as he saw something in Lamela, I can only presume that he can see something in Josh too.

EDIT: Did a bit of googling. In a similar period, United have made appx £16m from selling academy products who haven't made it. Liverpool have made over £60m but once you deduct the £35m for Sterling and £15m for Ibe, you are left with a similar car boot sale to United.

 

The most productive Academy is Southampton's. Their aim is to produce half of their first team in-house and I don't need to list the players they have produced in the last decade. They don't loan out their young talent. They play them. It works for them but they're not having to win week in and week out and can wait for the improvement in those players to happen tomorrow.

Citeh and Chelsea spend untold £millions on their Academies and pretty much loan out the graduates before selling them on. Even ones who look like they may make it, like Iheanacho are going to end up being replaced by someone like Gabriel Jesus because they think that they're better right now. Tomorrow is too late. United have had to buy back Pogba and Michael Keane may be next. Pep would jump at the chance to get Trippier back to Citeh. They may miss creating a top talent in-house. They don't care because they can afford not to care.

We don't fit into either category. We can't afford to buy at the top end of the market but we need top players now to back up our first XI, which comprises players we couldn't come close to affording to buy at their market values right now. Southampton don't have to bring in players to go toe to toe at the top of the table.

Well, it seems we're stuck in the position of hoping that kids who aren't realistically ready to perform at the highest level can be made ready via exceptional management and because they have to be because we don't have enough senior pro's at the club. Presumably, this is because we can't afford to buy players who are as good as what we have or better and we end up having to take punts on Vincent Janssen, GKN, Clinton N'Jie and Moussa Sissoko. It seems that we can't rely on them either and they cost us the best part of £70m. We've done remarkably to buy Dele Alli, Eric Dier and Victor Wanyama but we're not in a position where we can buy De Bruyne, Pogba, M'Khitaryan, Gabriel Jesus or Diego Costa like the teams we're trying to finish above.

Whilst I want to win trophies and would rather rest 5 or 6 first teamers than all 11 for cup games, I'm willing to accept that MP and John McDermott have the experience to make the right calls on who is ready to be given a starting place or come on from the bench. Given that we're nearer Southampton than we might want to admit, I don't think we've got much choice. We just need to back the kids and hope for the best for them and from them. I don't see any better options now or on the horizon. I'm not going to write Josh Onomah off aged 19, nor CCV. If our manager picks them, we need to give them our support, even if they have troubles. As we've seen with Pritchard, Mason, Townsend and Bentaleb, if or when those players are deemed not to have a future with Spurs, they'll be gone soon enough.

 

On reflection I'm going to give the boys a +1 for not giving in again and again, regardless of the opposition.

COYS

 

I am not sure Sterling or Ibe count I thought Sterling came through the academy at QPR & Ibe was definitely from Wycombe

 

True, but they were both only 16 when Liverpool signed them. If we look at Bentaleb as a 'Spurs product' despite coming here when he was already 18, they definitely qualify for the 'Liverpool product' label. 16 is still very, very young in footballing terms. I'd say 16-19 are probably the most crucial years in a young player's development. If the club or academy (or the player) screws them up, it's pretty much curtains in most cases.

EDIT: Just saw Brian's post. Southampton have far and away the most financially productive academy. Them aside, I don't think there is anyone remotely close to what we've achieved.

 

Southampton have been known to sell a little cheaply though