Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Wycombe Wanderers

Carroll was never really going to make it here, I think most Spurs fans knew that from fairly early on. Pritch in fairness got an injury at the worst possible time, Poch even mentioned Pritch would be staying with the first team for the 15/16 campaign but he carried the knock from the U21 Championships into the season, aggravated it against Everton and was out for practically the whole year, by then the team had too many people challenging for similar roles and Pritch was at the back of the queue.

It was a solid period for the academy though and so far it's definitely been the best, I'd agree with you on that; Kane obviously being the real star but Mason, Bentaleb, Townsend and Carroll all enjoyed various degrees of success and they all played their part in the Poch revolution.

However, with this current batch, which is "headlined" so to speak by Winks at the moment, I genuinely feel they can all have long careers here and collectively be more successful than the bunch above.
Winks' progression is giving me more and more confidence each day that he can eventually be the long term heir to Dembele's position, he's playing like someone far beyond his years, can definitely see why Poch allowed Mason to leave to further Winks' development.
CCV is such a unit at 19 years old and prior to the Wycombe game he'd looked really good in his appearances to date. I think by learning more from Jan and Toby, he's only going to improve, has already received a call up to the USA senior side and with Wimmer's recent form, there's every chance he can jump ahead of him in the pecking order sooner rather than later.
Onomah has his doubters but I'm not one of them, I've seen enough of him to believe that once he gets a bit more confidence and sharpens his skills, he'll definitely be capable of challenging Eriksen/ Alli and co for attacking midfield roles.
Edwards is who I'm most excited about, everything I've seen of him just screams future star player. I've always taken a keen interest in the youth at Spurs and Edwards is probably the most gifted youngster I've watched. Obviously it's still way too early and of course the early promise could prove to be a false dawn but I really believe we have an absolute gem and in time can go on to become one of the very best players in the country, if not Europe, providing we help develop him correctly.

 

Ledders has certainly been singing the praises of CCV: http://www.football.london/tottenha...edley-king-reveals-wonderkid-cameron-12526041

 

No mention of Nathan Oduwa.

Had a successful loan period at Rangers and where has that got him? Colchester and Peterborough- where he has done what?

Let's see what next?

 

I think the whole debate around loaning out players is must be such a headache for the club management. I think that if you can find the right manager to loan a player too at a good level, then it can be a huge advantage to a player, both in terms of developing them as footballers and building their value for a sale. Warburton springs to mind - I know Pritch was unlucky with injuries at a key moment, but we'd never have got as much for him as we did if he'd had more limited playing opportunities with us IMO. His strong 2 seasons at Swindon and Brentford undoubtedly set him up for his move away. And Oduwa (and I think Ball?) seemed to do ok for Warburton for a time at Rangers.

The Chelsea model of effectively creating a few 'B' teams of loanees is not the same as the above.

You can argue that we should have sold Carroll when his stock was highest but then again he filled in adequately when he had to for us in between the Swansea loan and his sale. What price the contribution he made under those circumstances? But now with Winks being in a position to take the opportunities that might have previously been Carroll's, and making far more of them so far, this was the right time to move him on.

 

I can tell you what he's doing for the next 80-odd minutes...

 

Our players have gone out on loan and are still playing in our youth games? Huh?

 

Rather eventful first half for Oduwa, scoring one, forcing an OG and assisting a third.

 

Think Oduwa will be gone in the summer. His deal is up then and during last summer he supposedly rejected a new offer as he wants first team football. Not sure if there's any chance of us offering improved terms but he's a really talented lad, has a touch of the Taarabt's about him in that he should sometimes look to pass rather than beat 5 players but nonetheless with the right training and playing time, he could become a top player.