I got confused, thinking "that's not Kyle Walker". Then i realised you were all talking about Khumalo, a player i have no idea what he looks like whatsoever.
Khumalo interview: http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/spurs-tv/interviews/first-step-for-bongani/ Seems like a nice bloke, actually. Hopefully he'll be able to get fit enough to either go out on loan in January or join someone else and get his career back on track.
Does anyone know if he is good enough to be in our first team squad? Can't be awful if he plays in the South Africa team, surely. I've never seen him though. His accent was more Surbiton than Pretoria!
He's just returning from a serious injury, so a bit early to judge how the injury may have affected him. Pre-injury, I thought he looked reasonably solid and certainly good enough for at least Championship level. He was a bit like Dawson in his early time at the club when he looked a better player when he had Ledley alongside him. I always thought Khumalo would be similar, would need a wise head next to him.
Highlights of the win against City, via their website: http://www.mcfc.co.uk/citytv/Match-highlights/2014/December/Spurs-U21s-v-City-EDS-highlights? Was that a pen?
The kids progressed in the Youth Cup last night, beating Blackburn 4-1 in a tie played at Dagenham & Redbridge's ground. 1-0 up after 2 minutes, level after 6. 2-1 at HT and 3-1 a minute after the restart. At least our forwards are awake early on at some level! Josh Onomah and Ismail Azzaoui with the goals, with the latter bagging a hat-trick.
I mentioned in a post on another thread a few days back about the talents of Onomah and Azzaoui, if we can help develop their undoubted potential, we have two players with huge futures in football.
Meanwhile, Arsenal are so incapable of producing their own youngsters, they're battling it out with Man Utd for the signature of a 14 year-old from Exeter. Just a reminder of what UEFA say about the protection of young players, from their own website: One of the biggest challenges facing European football is that, since the European Court of Justice's Bosman ruling of 1995 and the rapid growth of television revenue, the richest clubs have been able to stockpile (or 'hoard') the best players, making it easier for them to dominate both national and European competitions. At the same time, clubs have fewer incentives to train their own players or give a genuine chance to young players from their region. This trend is exacerbated by the increasingly unreliable financial compensation for training young players who leave early, and the ability of many European clubs to 'poach' young players from the age of 16 from across the European Union. UEFA's rule aims to encourage the local training of young players, and increase the openness and fairness of European competitions. It also aims to counter the trend for hoarding players, and to try to re-establish a 'local' identity at clubs.
Ismail Azzaoui, on the other hand, is a nice local lad. If you're from Brussels! It's wrong that clubs are doing it, including ours, but I'm not sure what anyone can do about it, from a legal perspective.
A 16 year-old like Azzaoui is eligible for a professional contract, so falls within the legal guidelines (but only just, and I'm talking razor thin here) - something that can't be said of a 14 year-old. Arsenal certainly have previous in this area, too: they poached some 9 year-old from Luton a few years back, and that seems to have turned him into an obnoxious twat with a remarkable capacity for injuring himself...
Right on cue (well, almost...) here's Azzaoui scoring a hat trick against Blackburn U18s: http://instagram.com/p/wZG7KGN30o/
I have seen all of these except O'Hara and Taarabt play League football at Priestfield, Forecast, Daniels, Mills and Barcham have all donned the Blue of the Gills (Forecast may have worn Green!), I have also met Taarabt and he seemed a decent enough bloke!
The U21s beat Fulham 2-0 on Saturday with goals from Oduwa and Akindayini: [video=youtube;kffapKRN26s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffapKRN26s[/video] The casual reaction to the first goal from those closest to the box is unbelievable. He must do that a lot in training or something.
Fast forward to 1h 28m 40s http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/56704761 A spectator report says: Tottenham U18s had an on field brawl with U17 USMNT today in Florida I was at the match tonight. Don't have a link to any reports yet please feel free to post any. In the 78th minute Spurs' Ryan Loft got the ball and was dragged down rather roughly. He responded by putting his hand around the American player's throat while on the ground. The American retaliated and a scuffle ensued. More players got involved and people were thrown to the ground. The American bench, including coaches, cleared and the fights were broken up. Some Spurs players left the bench but did not get more than 10 yards onto the field before deciding against joining in. The referee blew the whistle and ended the game with the U.S. up 1-0 Not sure what the outcome will be for Spurs to play in the final of the tournament. If they qualified for it, I'm also not sure of that. It was quite the rough game all around with both teams having some penalty shouts waved away by the referee. Spurs had one that the linesman called a penalty but the Ref overruled.
The youngsters went on to win that trophy, beating a side called Black Rock 1-0 in the final, via an extra-time Shayon Harrison goal. Good to see the kids picking up another piece of silverware, playing abroad and doing well. It's too early to say that our academy's really working completely, but it's a vast improvement on what we've seen in the recent past.
Pritchard score the opener and set up both of Brentford's other goals, as they beat Cardiff 3-2 on the weekend: [video=youtube;i7MMVb3b7N8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7MMVb3b7N8[/video] Might be a bit generous to call the second one an assist, but it's a nice driving run from his own half to get into that position. Great finish by Jota, though.
Its remarkable the improvement in the output from our academy over the last few years. It wasn't long ago that we had nobody coming through and playing at a high level other than Ledley. Now we have a first team consisting of Rose, Bentaleb, Mason, Townsend, Kane. Carroll is playing in the prem and Pritchard is at the upper end of the championship. We just need some defenders really
