They made their Tottenham debuts tonight. From OS. Summer arrivals Yago Falque and Cristian Ceballos made their mark on their debuts as our Spurs XI team fought back twice to beat Kettering Town on Wednesday night. The Spanish youngsters scored two goals each as we came from 2-0 and 4-2 down to win 5-4 in Jean-Paul Marna's Testimonial at Nene Park, the former home of Rushden & Diamonds. Blue Square Premier side Kettering were quick out of the blocks. Moses Ashikodi opened the scoring after six minutes and then Marna marked his night with a smart volley for 2-0. Falque, on a season-long loan from Juventus, got us back into the game when his low strike cannoned home off Jerel Ifil. And it wasn't long before Ceballos, formerly of Barcelona, raced through the middle and calmly lifted over advancing goalkeeper Aldi Haxhia for 2-2. Chances came and went before the Poppies hit us with another quick one-two at the start of the second half with another fine finish from Marna fopr 3-2 and Robbie Dance on target for 4-2 in the 51st and 57th minutes. Ceballos and Falque then combined to make it 4-3, exchanging passes to allow Ceballos to dink home one-on-one in the 64th minute. Two minutes later and substitute John Bostock produced an unstoppable free-kick from the edge of the box to level it at 4-4. Fittingly, one of the debutants had the final word as Kevin Stewart raced onto a pass down the left and cut the ball back for Falque, who worked a yard of space before drilling low across Nick Bussey and home. I know its only a friendly but it shows they know where the net is, unlike some of our midfielders.
We definitely need some new recruits at the back for our academy. I've noticed that Townsend, Fredericks (wingers), Luongo (creative mid) and Nicholson (holding mid) have all been used in defence for games recently and it's showed. We've got the likes of Caulker, Khumalo, Naughton, Smith and Byrne out on loan, but we need another generation of young defenders to follow them. Getting well ahead of where we are now, admittedly, but I think we may need to if the stadium plans ever become a reality.
I don't think they are eligible to be in the B squad so they can't play unless they replace someone in the A squad after the group stages
So they've signed for us and we aren't going to utilise them? Well that makes sense, when we've already got players in the PL & EC squads who aren't going to get anywhere near the team! Is Coulibaly the same then?
Parrett and Bostock played, those two have been around for years and not done anything. Any hope of them ever making the step up ?
KH - they both played in the Kettering match. Obviously haven't progressed as much as was promised, so I would suspect they will go out on loan again.
They're two typical Barca trained midfielders, creative and forward thinking. Might have a couple "gemitos" as Ensil said if we can get them to reach their potential.
Not in Europe, Ensil. To be on list B, they have to have been eligible to play for us for two years, whatever their ages. Falque is in the Europa squad for the group stages. After that, we can make two changes to the squad. That's it for this season.
I'd still hold off on assessing the EL squad based on UEFA's website, CN. It contains some obvious errors, despite having been updated recently.
Skip UEFA's site, just use Wikipedia. It's probably ten times more accurate, even with various additions based on guesswork or trolling...