I think Luongo's been playing at centre-half, alongside Hall, PS. It's been a 4-5-1 of sorts, from what I can tell.
Match report from Stoke: http://www.stokecityfc.com/news/article/under-21s-home-spurs-494125.aspx?pageView=full#anchored They make it sound like a very positive performance, but it looks like they think we played a 3-3-2-2 formation, which is odd.
Yes, Massimo Luongo has started the last 2 games at CB to cover for injury, although the guy is so talented he can pretty much cover anywhere. Staying with the youth team set-up, it does now seem as if the departure of Alex Inglethorpe to Liverpool is imminent. The delay has been down to 'unforseen circumstances', which I interpret to be agreement over compensation settlement. It had been thought his last game with us would be the Next Gen game in Barcelona 10 days ago, but as he wasn't in charge for the Academy game against Stoke yesterday, I presume a final settlement has now been agreed. The under 18 team yesterday was taken by Kieran McKenna. Kieran has been part of our academy set-up for a while now and was a very highly rated youngster with us until a severe hip problem meant he was forced to retire from the game whilst still part of our youth structure. He was a member of Clive Allen's reserve team squad who won the reserve league about 6 years ago. He has spent his recent years getting his coaching badges and also qualifications in sports psychology. Expect him to be a strong candidate to replace Inglethorpe.
Miles Fredericks Hall Luongo Veljkovic Parrett Mason Pritchard Ceballos Townsend Obika Spurs U21s now need just four points from our remaining two matches to guarantee participation in the Elite League in 2013. Our next games are both away to Sunderland (10th December) and Aston Villa (17th December). As there's quite a gap now before our next match, I would expect a Spurs XI game or two to be squeezed in to keep the players sharp. please log in to view this image Under-21 Barclays Premier League Season 2012-13
It seems as if there is a backlash to this incident carrying on into this evening. Apparantly Leeds 'fans' have been bombarding Adam Smith's twitter account hurling abuse at him for getting Varney sent off. Smith has apparantly responded by caling Leeds fans and the club 'horrible' and saying he wouldn't be bothered if they went out of existence. Oh dear.
For the benefit of those who are interested in this competition, Manchester United lost one of their 2 games in hand yesterday, by getting beat by Aston Villa. The top two teams qualify for the next stage, 12 games are played at this stage and we sit top with 20 points from 10 games, and United and Villa now both have 15 points from 9 games. Newcastle who could have overtaken us now have 14 points from 10 games.
One newspaper this morning is reporting Barcelona are interested in 2 of our young stars, Pritchard and Coulthirst.
Hi SC You see a lot of pilfering of young players, usually leaving the parent club miffed. Are our players tied into contracts without loopholes?
Ah thanks, I must've missed out 2nd game against United then, I only remember the 2-1. Saw that about Coultihirst and Pritchard. I think Prtichard was linked to Real Madrid actually but lets hope it's all just guesswork based on Coultihirst playing well against Barca, he was pretty awful in the first leg as I recall. Ceballos has been linked with Real recently too, I'd hate to see our best youngsters get poached, if that starts happening I won't be surprised if club's start abandoning the Nextgen competition.
Pritchard should be looking to push into the first team soon, from what I've seen of him. A bench place for Thursday might be an idea, especially if Villas-Boas wants to mix things up a bit. I wonder how strong our group in the U21s is? Man Utd have played a number of squad players in it, you'd expect Southampton to have a strong side and Villa have brought through a number of promising youngsters recently. West ham seem to have walked through the group with Arsenal in it, yet our side has scored nearly twice as many goals as them in 2 less games, while conceding twice as many at the other end. It'll be interesting to see how this and the Nextgen pan out.
Pritchard's free-kick against Stoke: [video=youtube;0SHqnSHpSjo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SHqnSHpSjo[/video] Deflection or keeper error? Hard to tell. The highlights are on Spurs TV again and Stoke's keeper had a very, very busy game. Could've been double figures.
Would you seriously put young Pritchard on the pitch for his first senior gametime away to Lazio's cloggers?? they'd snap him in half!
Not from the start, no. I'd like to see him brought on from the bench, but only if Villas-Boas uses squad players for our starting XI. Hopefully the ref won't be so bloody lenient in this game. Knowing our luck he'll be some harsh bastard and he'll send off a bunch of our players!
