The 2013/2014 Spurs Under 21 Thread

He played on the left of a front 3.

 

Hi Spurcat, I read your updates on the u21 league last year but I didnt look at the formations. Have they adopted a 4-3-3 as this is what the first 11 are moving towards, or was this something they did last year?

 

The sides underneath the 1st team have all been coached to play a 4-3-3 formation. AVB likes his players, particularly his defenders and midfielders to multi-task and be flexible, which a 4-3-3 does require. Personally, I feel this formation is better suited for young players anyway.

 

Ah, thanks. I'd assumed we were playing 4231.

 

Front 3 of Falque, Kane and Coulthirst.

 

Read a couple of Chelsea reviews of the game that were linked on Newsnow and they seemed pretty surprised by the gulf in quality.
They were hoping to push on after taking the lead and weren't expecting to get blown away by our response.
Good to see such an impressive start, especially as there's been quite a few changes since the last campaign.

 

"Read a couple of Chelsea reviews of the game that were linked on Newsnow and they seemed pretty surprised by the gulf in quality."

On the other side, I didn't have the heart to tell them that was at best
around 60% of the strongest strictly U21 lineup Spurs could theoretically
field.

 

Certainly quashes District Line's claim that their academy's producing better prospects than ours

 

" Certainly quashes District Line's claim that their academy's producing better prospects than ours"

Think he's confusing U18s with U21s. Quite a difference.

 

That was the Chelsea team that played Sutton,supposedly worth 15 million pounds!

 

D/L on the chav's board claiming Spurs team were 21,22&23 years old, playing 16&17 year olds

 

Falque is fairly old isn't he, but that's about it

 

The three Chelsea players that I can remember being involved, as they were their biggest names on show, were Ake, Chalobah and McEachran. 18, 18 and 20.
Our side was Archer (20), Fredericks (20), Ball (just turned 18 this week), Stewart (19), McQueen (18), Bentaleb (18), Carroll (21), Gallifuoco (19), Coulthirst (19), Falque (23) and Kane (20).
One overage player.

 

DL never lets facts get in the way of a good moan

 

There are effectively 3 age bands. U18. U19 (Nextgen) . U21.
IMHO if your academy is delivering then you will have a decent batch of players in
each DISTINCT band.

I say "distinct" to prevent any nonsense about U18s able to play in U21 games etc.

At the moment, the Academy has a very strong batch in the U21 band.
I would have thought that is most important, as in general they should be
the band from which the next seniors emerge from.

If other clubs do not have such a batch, and are playing 16 yr olds etc in U21s
when they don't have an injury plague or mass loan-outs, then IMHO that
speaks volumes about where they truly are.

 

The Chelsea side and ages were Brown (16), Kiywoma (17), McEachran (20), Boga (16), Swift (18), Loftus-Cheek (17). Christensen (17), Ake(18), Chalobah (18), Wright (17) and Beeney(17).

 

Definitely a younger side then, but one with some experience of first-team football in McEachran, Ake and Chalobah. Maybe they need to spend some more money?

Higlits:

[video=youtube;XxnoxBpj5oA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxnoxBpj5oA[/video]

WARNING: It's from ChelseaTV and I haven't watched it yet, so it may contain objectionable twats commentating.

 

"WARNING: It's from ChelseaTV and I haven't watched it yet, so it may contain objectionable twats commentating."

Wasn't even remotely as bad as that prat Paddy Crerand in the U21 play-off final.

 

Only one other game taking place this weekend in this competition and that was played this afternoon. The result was Manchester City 1 Fulham 2.

 

Fulham had a decent U18 team last season I recall.
If some of them are stepping up to the U21 team, good for them.

We'll see what the Citeh academy is like midday on monday week.