Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

So we sign Werner and play Moore using Werner as a back up.

 

Or even better; we don’t sign Werner, play Son and give Santiago/ Moore opportunities when possible. Saves us wasting chances on a Chelsea and Leipzig reject as well as saving us £165k a week.

 

Because it relies on Moore being good enough to take the step up at the age of 16.

The list of players who have broken through in the PL at 16/17 years old and gone on to have successful careers is frighteningly short. Rooney, Owen and Milner are the only ones that spring to mind. Maybe Lennon and Elliott deserve a mention.

Giving Moore another year to develop while simultaneously upgrading Gil and Solomon (the latter on account of the fact that he doesn't ever play) is one of the most sensible things I've ever seen the club do. And we've done some daft things in recent years.

 

So just release Santiago, yeah? Albeit I half expect him to leave anyway.

Replacing/ upgrading Gil doesn’t/ didn’t need to happen, it was the same when we thought replacing N’jie with Nkoudou was necessary. Gil’s replacement could’ve been done internally when you factor in the game time he’s had at Spurs. Those sporadic minutes could’ve been used on Santiago or Moore. Instead they’ll now go to Werner or Solomon, depending on who’s higher in the pecking order.

Moore’s and Santiago’s development is only being stifled by Werner’s addition. And the fact it’s such a bang average, mediocre addition makes it all the more annoying. Because we’re neglecting youth development - again - to play a guy that multiple teams haven’t wanted and for good reason.

 

In other news, Richarlison has just posted that he will not be leaving the PL this summer, which is just marvelous.

I hope whoever takes over at Chelsea really rates him.

 

I consider myself to be quite blessed that I saw a
fair few of the games of the class of 2012-13.

It is both quite humbling and horrifying to realise
just how little we know as supporters and how
fragile the path to getting to greatness as a
senior really is.

All I see in Moore is a prospect, nothing more.
Same with Lankshear and the U21 boys.

All I can hope for them is that :

1. the loan stage process is as short as it was for
Walker / Kane / Townsend, and not as tortuous as
it was for Livermore.

2. they come out the other side to become
long-serving members of the senior squad.

 

Townsend had more loans than Livermore. Felt like he went to half the country before managing to breakthrough.

 

I have a lot of regard for DH's opinion on this as he seems to follow the academy teams closer than most posters on here.

I'll only watch the occasional game so I do base my opinion more on probabilities than what I've seen.

There is no question we haven't utilised the academy properly in almost a decade. We also haven't used the loan system wisely at all. But the litmus test is to ask how many players have left Spurs as youngsters and gone on to really make a name for themselves?

Noni Madueke and Marcus Edwards have done pretty well, although the latter didn't have the best season last season and found himself on the bench in quite a few games as a result.

If Santiago leaves, I won't lose much sleep over it simply because I've never really seen him tested at the highest level.

I've seen Dane Scarlett tested at the highest level and also levels significantly lower than it, and so far as cruel as it sounds I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Same goes for Parrott.

I won't be pleased that many will leave on a free while other clubs seem to have no problem turning a decent profit on their academy products, but until any of them leave and then go on to actually establish themselves with a successful career at a top club, I don't see much reason to get too upset.

The gulf between PL2 and the PL is vast and only a select few will make it. I admire Liverpool's approach and how much faith they show in youngsters, but of the top 3 they relied by far the most on their academy products and sadly the proof of the pudding is in the fact that they fell away in three out of four competitions.

 

Where I feel I differ from a lot of other Spurs fans is that I'd much rather take the risk of giving a young player game time where we can never be sure how they'll turn out, than give game time to senior players we know are not good enough.

Moore/ Santiago/ Donley etc could all eventually turn out to be complete and utter duds, somewhat like Onomah, in that youth football looked far too easy for them but senior football proved a different kettle of fish or they could turn out to be the next academy superstar like Hoddle, King or Kane. In fact whilst the latter would be the ideal outcome, they wouldn't even necessarily need to be that good, they could be another Caulker, Livermore, Mason, Townsend, Winks or Skipp in that they serve a short term or squad spot purpose and then (in all but Skipp's case so far) be sold for a nice 100% profit.

Not a lot of things wind me up as much though than seeing potential opportunities for these players wasted on the likes of Werner, Emerson, Lo Celso and players of similar quality. We've lost out on some really good talents over the last 5 years, in KWP, Madueke and Edwards, there's almost £100m worth of transfer value we could've benefitted from had we been better at creating a path for our young players. The way we're currently operating, I'd say there's a good chance we could be having similar conversations in another 5 years about Donley and co.

 

Sonny at LW with Werner as backup and Moore getting minutes is the best approach

Which also mean we cut our losses on Bryan and let Solomon post zionist conspiracy theories on somebody else's dime

 

As things stand with out Academy, the way to look at it

Plyers who can hack it at Championship level: Phillips, Tanganga, Parrott (which is where I rate the lower half of the Eredivisie)
Players who can hack it at League One level: Scarlett, Devine (who bossed it at Port Vale, not so much Plymouth)
Players who can hack it at League One level: Craig, Keeley (who, in spite his lack of clean sheets, was clearly a level above Barnet), Ndombele

Of course, after that there's the level of the unknown: Lankshere, Donley, Lankshere, Santiago, Soonsup-Bell, Hall and Abbott all have potential up the wazoo, but how does that translate in reality? Not only is there the obvious step-up, but also the risk of a loan either wasting his time like Nile John at Charlton a couple of years back, or even actively reversing their development as we've seen with Jack Roles or Massimo Luongo

 

Werner on loan (only saving grace it’s not permanent) and Richarlison saying he’s staying (hopefully the club receive a bid and tell him he’s not needed) is not the start to the window I was hoping for.

 

I said at the time taking Devine out of Vale was a concern. Regardless of Foster’s history with Devine, it made little sense to take a player in great form playing every week out of that situation. I think it’s proven so bad too in that it’s set his development to the first team squad back a year. Had he stayed at Vale, every chance he could’ve been in with a shout of being in Ange’s plans.

Our loan system in general needs a huge rejig though, been an utter disaster. Feels like there’s been no thought when sending players out. Parrott, John, Devine, Scarlett and Veliz have all been victims of extremely poor loan decisions in recent years.

As for the unknown lot. I think Santiago’s future is as good as done here unfortunately, Werner’s arrival kills any hope for him getting chances in Europa next season and at 21 he’s not gonna wait around for opportunities that likely aren’t going to come. I think he’ll be the next Edwards/ Madueke. Abbott, Lankshear and Soonsup-Bell (plus Dorrington minus the injuries) are in that phase now where a loan should be considered to the right club, Boro’s been loosely linked with Lankshear but I think League One would be a better destination to guarantee starts. Donley might have pre-season to give the club an idea as to whether he’ll be involved with the first team or head on loan with the others. Hall should have a full season with 23s this year.

 

I agree with the sentiment but not with that list. We're getting Werner on the cheap, Lo Celso was supposed to be a ready made high level player and Emerson was worth a punt. It's players like Hojbjerg, Lucas Moura and Bergwijn who are the real issue...hardly any better than the academy product they are displacing and that was clear from day one.

 

Cheap means nothing, the price of a player isn’t the thing we should be worried about, it’s the quality. Werner is painfully average and he’ll be stifling potentially far better players by blocking their routes to the first team. He isn’t cheap either, at £165k a week, he’s on more than triple the salary our player of the season is on.

Hojbjerg is far better than any one on that list too.

Lo Celso and Emerson have continued getting opportunities that could’ve been given elsewhere, Emerson was even played out of position over an academy player.

 

I think the core of the problem is as you've said: the loan system and how we continually seem to screw it up.

We've agreed that most academy products are going to be somewhere around Skipp's level rather than once in a generation talent like Kane's.

But to take the plunge and trust that you'll get at the very least a solid squad player who will save circa £15-25m in transfer fees and also be HG, it is usually the case that managers will want to see those players prove themselves at a level significantly higher than the reality of PL2.

Skipp showed that at Norwich. Townsend showed it at Brum. Walker showed it at QPR and Villa. Mason showed it at Swindon (albeit they were in League One at the time).

Once a player has shown ability at that level, it's a much safer bet that they will at best turn out to be another Kane or Walker, at worst another Skipp or Townsend.

We haven't given our youngsters enough of a chance to shine at a level where their performances actually mean something. Most of our successful loanees tend to be young players we are looking to get rid of, who go out on loan after it's pretty clear they aren't good enough for Spurs, e.g. Tanganga.

 

Moving Devine up a level made a degree of sense, as bossing it in League One in a team who ultimately went down isn't going to give a clear picture of whether a player can step up into the first team

The issue is the one that comes up quite a lot with our loanees: finding a level where they can get games, which often doesn't happen if they're at a team fighting for promotion/against relegation, as most managers default to experience for key positions instead of trusting youth - and while that usually makes sense given what is at stake, that also leads to anomalies like Nigel Pearson having Harry Kane & Jamie Vardy benched in favour of David Nugent

 

Skipp and Tanganga had both played over 20 times for Spurs before going out on loans though. Walker had also sporadically featured for Spurs and Sheffield prior to that QPR loan too.

Bentaleb and Winks went straight into first team duties and remained, albeit the latter to my grievance after it was obvious he just wasn’t good enough.

A lot will depend on the openings of course but that’s what’s frustrating, we’ve had openings many times this season and in past ones where we could’ve afforded a young player some game time yet chose not to. You then look around the Prem this season and other teams haven’t had issues throwing youngsters into the mix. It’s becoming a Tottenham thing more so than some generic thing when it comes to youth. They’re willing to show faith and trust, we’re not. And more signings like Werner just further close any small openings there might have been.

 

Agree on the first, but Parrott has been flying (sorry) last few months in the Dutch league and as such is surely worth another look before letting him go.

 

What really stands out is how managers have drastically different approaches to blooding youngsters

Redknapp preferred to get them as much experience out on loan as possible, though sacking off the Europa League did give the likes of Livermore and Carroll an early leg up in that regard
Poch on the other hand preferred to dripfeed players into the team, which he was doing in the Europa League with Winks and Onomah - but once CL football was a regular thing only Skippy got a chance,and that's a large art of why so many youngsters left
And then there's Nuno stuffing the ECL squad with them without much of as plan