"Not sure - he had a month at Orient last season, but after that he was loaned to Torquay." IMHO progressing Academy strikers is high priority now. If Obika is not going to be used, then there is a big experience/age gap from Ade/Soldado to Kane only.
A few sites suspect the only reason Obika and Mason are retained and loaned every season is to keep our HG quota topped up - until Kane, Davies, Carroll, Fryers and Fredericks all graduate to being HG players at the end of this coming season. Today's spin on The Schneiderlin Saga: cash + Chadli
"A few sites suspect the only reason Obika and Mason are retained and loaned every season is to keep our HG quota topped up - until Kane, Davies, Carroll, Fryers and Fredericks all graduate to being HG players at the end of this coming season." Of the players many would want rid of this summer : Dawson/Carroll/Mason/Obika 2-3 of those currently have to remain to keep the over 21 HG quota to a minimum of 8.
It also goes a long way to explaining why Rose got a five year contract. On the plus side, how many more reasons do we need to get rid of Khumalo? He's not HG, he's not U21, and he's not good enough. That's three big red ticks in the "Get Rid" column!
But as people keep saying we can have 0 homegrown if we really want. We'd just only have a squad of 17 foreigners plus U21s. There is zero point keeping a **** homegrown player unless we just like paying wages for nothing
At some point those U21 players won't be U21 anymore. Besides, isn't that two sides of the same coin? On paper any club could have 17 non-HG and as many crap U21 players as they liked to fill out the quotas.
True, but from what I can tell, not much, at least for Dembele and Sandro. He seems to want the opposite of Dembele in midfield, i.e., someone who passes the ball up fast, even if he gifts the ball to the other team from time to time, rather than someone who dribbles it up slowly and safely. Capoue has looked good, so I'm guessing it's Capoue vs. Schneiderlin/TBD, rather than Capoue vs. Sandro. There are Sandro to Napoli rumors. I'm surprised there aren't Dembele rumors. I don't know about Paulinho. He can be high energy and a good ball winner. He can get forward and score and create goals. Both are things which Poch seems to value. On the other hand, when he gets the ball in midfield he tends to dribble rather than pass. And while he can dribble forward quickly, both his tendency not to pass the ball downfield and his poor passing and shooting range make me wonder if he'll fit into Poch's plans. It may depend on how he is at playing fast-paced, one touch football. Lennon may have won a starting spot because he's good at that. In any case, I'm looking forward to learning more about the 2014 team as well. I'm impressed by the quality of the players and think (and hope!) Poch will get them playing good football.
The likes of Khumalo must be on borrowed time now. Pochettino does seem to have given a fair number of other Academy players a go in the USA tour games.
Borrowed time?! He was on borrowed time about three years ago! He's been shoplifting, pickpocketing and ram raiding for time since then and probably owes Wonga about 23,000,000 years by now as well.
Let's get this straight: THERE IS NO MINIMUM NUMBER OF HOMEGROWN PLAYERS REQUIRED. RATHER, THERE IS A MAXIMUM NUMBER OF NON-HOMEGROWN PLAYERS ALLOWED (17).
"Please say this is an elaborate wum" Are we going for a squad of 17 foreigners, zero over 21 HGs, and "kids for a quid" U21s ??
Hoorayyyyyy (though of course the squad size is 25 plus u21s. I'm not saying you didn't know this, I'm just being pedantic.)
What Lenny said. If obika, for example, is behind u21 players in the pecking order there is virtually no reason to keep him. We can shift out the deadwood homegrowns as long as we don't buy an 18th foreigner and expect to be able to put him in the squad
Exactly. U21s and HGs are for all intents and purposes in the same category. There's no point whatsoever (for the purposes of the current season anyway) in picking a HG over an U21. The only quota is 17 overseas (non HG, non U21 players), but going out and getting another U21 or another HG doesnt mean youve got any less overseas players than you've got.
Ooh! And just when we were so close to total clarity! The HG but over-21 players are crucially different to under-21 players in that they count towards the 25-player squad limit whereas under-21s don't. Limitations are: A squad can have a maximum of 25 over-21 players with as many under-21s as you like. Of the 25 only 17 of them can be non-HG. So if we have 17 Non HG players and only 6 HG players that is fine. We would have an EPL squad of 23 plus as many U-21 players as we want. There is no necessity to have a squad of 25 - that's just the maximum. In other words there is zero reason to hang on to the Obikas of this world to fill some quota. In fact he would just be taking up a squad place and wages when it could go to someone more deserving. Like me, for example.
I think Rob meant that as long as we aren't over 25 players then U21s and HG are essentially the same. Eg, not foreign. I'm not sure where we are with regards to numbers at Spurs
If only someone had a thread about the squad size Tottenham Squad 2014/15 Squad by Homegrown/Overseas = Maximum 25, currently 26 Homegrown Minimum 8 (to have a squad of 25) Currently 9 not including U21 Goalkeepers Archer (U21) Defenders Naughton Dawson Davies Walker Rose Fryers (U21) Midfield/Wingers Lennon Bentaleb (U21) Townsend Carroll Ceballos (U21) Mason Forwards Kane (U21) Overseas Maximum 17, currently 17 not including U21 Goalkeepers Lloris Vorm Friedel Defenders Kaboul Vertonghen Dier (U21) Chiriches Assou-Ekotto Midfield/Wingers Dembele Holtby Sandro Chadli Paulinho Capoue Lamela Eriksen Forwards Soldado Adebayor
