Honourable mentions #15 - Thomas Glover #14 - Kenneth McEvoy #13 - Kazaiah Sterling #12 - Grant Ward #11 - Musa Yahaya #10 - Kyle Walker-Peters #9 - Harry Winks #8 - Ismael Azzaoui #7 - Milos Veljkovic #6 - DeAndre Yedlin #5 - Marcus Edwards #4 - Josh Onomah #3 - Cameron Carter-Vickers #2 - Alex Pritchard #1 - Dele Alli
LOL Do I take it Mr Cryptic HumanBeing that this is Ledley's rating of our younger players? Have you a link?
The problem is that most of them are playing in the same positions as each other. For example, the top fifteen has... Two centre backs (Veljkovic, Carter-Vickers) Two right backs (Yedlin, Walker-Peters) Three attacking midfielders (Pritchard, Edwards, Yahaya) Two right wingers (Azzaoui, McEvoy) Three central midfielders (Alli, Winks, Ward) Taking that into account, as well as the other ten who didn't get individual entries, there's going to be a few players who won't step up not because they don't have talent, but because their best positions are oversubscribed (as we've seen happen to Ryan Fredericks this summer)
I dunno about you but I've enjoyed Kane's rise far more than I would've if we'd signed some foreign striker who banged in the goals. I don't think we'll get 7 good enough out of that 15. The more coming through the better chance of us getting some that progress into the first team though. I admire the optimism that inspired your concern though
Of the top fifteen, I get the feeling Walker-Peters and Ward won't be stepping up not by any fault of their own, but because there's other players in the way. Walker-Peters has Walker, Trippier and Yedlin ahead of him in the right back pecking order and I doubt he will dislodge two of them let alone all three so he'll need to move on to get regular football (which happens surprisingly often with Academy right backs, such as Stephen Kelly, Adam Smith and Ryan Fredericks), while in Ward's case Bentaleb and Alli are already far ahead of him while Winks also seems to have nudged ahead. It has to be said they did another list two years ago, and nine of those twenty player have left the club since then.
That list's quite interesting. Bentaleb and Kane are there, but I guess it would have been hard to predict they would be the most successful ones two years later. There's a couple at the top, Carroll and Townsend, where you can still see why they were such highly rated prospects, but it hasn't quite worked out for them yet (Townsend's England caps notwithstanding). And then there's some that have done well in lower leagues (eg Luongo) and some that have disappeared entirely. I'd guess it'll be similar with the current bunch - there will turn out to be a couple of really good players in there, but it's hard to predict which, given all the things that can go wrong even for the biggest talents
The one from 2 years ago makes an interesting read. Carroll being number 1 (was it meant as a joke or not? I can't tell post-wine) is interesting - at this stage I think he will get a chance with us this coming season, which I was doubtful about earlier in the window. Townsend at 2 I can understand at the time, similarly Pritch at 3 who I think will play a role this season. Bentaleb and Kane at 6 and 7 is interesting, whereas now they're the two of the first names on the team sheet. Curiously, the report says Bentaleb lacks the physicality (apparently he was 5ft8 then, he's now 6ft2 I think) to play DM but praises his technical ability and vision. It also calls Kane out correctly on being not truly outstanding in terms of pace/strength, but having enough there to be effective if he develops mentally and technically.
Very young players can transform themselves instantly. Oduwa had no goals in 11 appearances for Luton Town in League Two last year, but he may have been our best player in the closed door friendlies we played. I remember Carroll was the big prospect two years ago, and it was nice to see him score on a very cleverly struck curling one hopper vs. AC Milan. Things didn’t go so well in the mean time, partly due IMO to AVB’s weird fascination with pairing him with Huddlestone in midfield. It looked like what it was: two players who couldn’t shield the back four, one because he was too big, and the other because he was too little.
