Spurs Youth 2018/19

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Stop beating the Poch "youth defender" drum then.

Once everyone stops giving Poch credit for something he hasn't shown, then we can have a proper discussion. Or rather, he himself should stop implying he gives youth a chance.

Otherwise, he should be called out on it. It's undeserved praise.
 
Stop beating the Poch "youth defender" drum then.

Once everyone stops giving Poch credit for something he hasn't shown, then we can have a proper discussion. Or rather, he himself should stop implying he gives youth a chance.

Otherwise, he should be called out on it. It's undeserved praise.

Can you find a post praising Poch for playing and giving youth a chance?

Or are you going to keep beating the same boring drum?
 


This tells us a couple of things:

  • We're planning a mass clear-out of the Under-23s and are padding the squad with this year's Under-18s.
  • The club are being *incredibly* generous with their contracts this year. Tainio, Statham and Pochettino (and Mukendie - waiting to see what happens there) in previous years would most likely have either been released or given a third year of their scholarship. Crackpot theory: Pochettino's son was going to be given a contract to keep the gaffer happy so they had to give contracts to their others too.
It is *absolutely* insane to me that we've offered pro contracts to Tainio, Statham and Pochettino and we've not offered an extension to Roles. Roles has a lot of interest elsewhere FWIW.
 
This tells us a couple of things:

  • We're planning a mass clear-out of the Under-23s and are padding the squad with this year's Under-18s.
  • The club are being *incredibly* generous with their contracts this year. Tainio, Statham and Pochettino (and Mukendie - waiting to see what happens there) in previous years would most likely have either been released or given a third year of their scholarship. Crackpot theory: Pochettino's son was going to be given a contract to keep the gaffer happy so they had to give contracts to their others too.
It is *absolutely* insane to me that we've offered pro contracts to Tainio, Statham and Pochettino and we've not offered an extension to Roles. Roles has a lot of interest elsewhere FWIW.
There's still a fair bit to play out yet but I'd be interested to get your take on where McDermott is with all this? Everything (which is next to nothing and just scraps in the media, to be honest) suggests that McDermott & Poch are very close and largely agree (with the exception of players loans) on most matters. Seeing he's not just developing our academy and also, rightly, sits in the player recruitment team with Hitchin and Poch, surely he too needs to be under the microscope too???
 
There's still a fair bit to play out yet but I'd be interested to get your take on where McDermott is with all this? Everything (which is next to nothing and just scraps in the media, to be honest) suggests that McDermott & Poch are very close and largely agree (with the exception of players loans) on most matters. Seeing he's not just developing our academy and also, rightly, sits in the player recruitment team with Hitchin and Poch, surely he too needs to be under the microscope too???

Under the microscope in what context?
 
Under the microscope in what context?
No one and I mean no one has a thing to say about him. In this thread, the Spurs Youth Thread, there is a lot of talk about Poch, hardly anything about McDermott, the man responsible for the Academy.

McDermott's reach is deep in the football side of the club, he's on the transfer committee or whatever it's called. I think it's great that he is as it shows that there is planning involved which you would have thought includes the discussion and inclusion of possible academy players. A process of player identification about who he thinks is looking good, what they need to develop in order to be considered for Snr squad inclusion/selection and over what timeframe. To have this discussion about identifying these players helps Hitchin scout the players in the positions that AREN'T looking likely of making a breakthrough (I assume Hitchin also has a hand in player identification of academy players at other academies??).

I digress though. All the negative talk about the academy right now has Poch's name stamped on it, not McDermott's, despite losing Parker (I do understand why he would take a PL managers job), Kieran McKenna, Inglethorpe & Matt Wells. Whilst recruiting the much-maligned Wayne Burnett and his woeful U23 side who play the most un-Tottenham like football I've seen. If Poch is being criticised then surely the man responsible for the academy must also shoulder some of the blame/responsibility too.

Everything I've ever heard about McDermott has been of the highest praise, the snippets we've heard from him too I like, he comes across very well. The snippets of the standards he sets and the measurement of players I really like and yet here we are under his leadership moaning about players not breaking through.

Whilst it can be debated until the cows come home about the qualities of player 'X', 'Y' or 'Z' and if they have the quality to make it or not ONLY Kane and Winks have genuinely shown they have, with Skipp tapping on the door. I'd include KWP in that as my eyes tell me he is and has always been a better more technical footballer than Frodo, but and to coin a Pochism, the "reality" is he hasn't, yet.

Don't confuse this as a rant, I just want to know more about the workings of the academy. I want to get under the skin of it and rather just say Poch is the roadblock to players making it, I want to know is McDermott is happy, complicit or responsible.

I do not have a happy vibe right now about our academy and it's not solely about KWP not being selected, it's about our U23 being shit and having them playing a poor brand of football. It's about losing numerous key and quality coaches (Inglethorpe, Parker, Wells, McKenna and go further back Chris Ramsey).

Is this all down to Poch?
 
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No one and I mean no one has a thing to say about him. In this thread, the Spurs Youth Thread, there is a lot of talk about Poch, hardly anything about McDermott, the man responsible for the Academy.

McDermott's reach is deep in the football side of the club, he's on the transfer committee or whatever it's called. I think it's great that he is as it shows that there is planning involved which you would have thought includes the discussion and inclusion of possible academy players. A process of player identification about who he thinks is looking good, what they need to develop in order to be considered for Snr squad inclusion/selection and over what timeframe. To have this discussion about identifying these players helps Hitchin scout the players in the positions that AREN'T looking likely of making a breakthrough (I assume Hitchin also has a hand in player identification of academy players at other academies??).

I digress though. All the negative talk about the academy right now has Poch's name stamped on it, not McDermott's, despite losing Parker (I do understand why he would take a PL managers job), Kieran McKenna, Inglethorpe & Matt Wells. Whilst recruiting the much-maligned Wayne Burnett and his woeful U23 side who play the most un-Tottenham like football I've seen. If Poch is being criticised then surely the man responsible for the academy must also shoulder some of the blame/responsibility too.

Everything I've ever heard about McDermott has been of the highest praise, the snippets we've heard from him too I like, he comes across very well. The snippets of the standards he sets and the measurement of players I really like and yet here we are under his leadership moaning about players not breaking through.

Whilst it can be debated until the cows come home about the qualities of player 'X', 'Y' or 'Z' and if they have the quality to make it or not ONLY Kane and Winks have genuinely shown they have, with Skipp tapping on the door. I'd include KWP in that as my eyes tell me he is and has always been a better more technical footballer than Frodo, but the and to coin a Pochism, "reality" is he hasn't.

Don't confuse this as a rant, I just want to know more about the workings of the academy. I want to get under the skin of it and rather just say Poch is the roadblock to players making it, I want to know is McDermott is happy, complicit or responsible.

I do not have a happy vibe right now about our academy and it's not solely about KWP not being selected, it's about our U23 being shit and having them playing a poor brand of football. It's about losing numerous key and quality coaches (Inglethorpe, Parker, Wells, McKenna and go further back Chris Ramsey).

Is this all down to Poch?

Good post.

Go back 5 years or so and Spurs had a top academy set up. However a lot of other clubs have put the time effort and money in with the result there's a lot of decent academies out there now which also means it's ever more competitive to get the best youngsters to Spurs.

In terms of coaches, when McDermott joined in about 2005 he brought in a number of good youth coaches like Inglethorpe ( although I read somewhere that he joined Spurs independently of McDermott and at about the same time,) Ramsey et al - and I suspect at the time it was a great adventure to set up from scratch a top academy when this was novel. Problem now is it's got very competitive to get in good coaches.

My personal guess is that Spurs ( now the stadium is built and revenues much greater) probably need to reassess the budget given to the academy to improve both the quality of youngsters coming in and indeed the coaching staff. And there is the thorny question as to how to progress the kids from age 18/19 through to first team which is now poorer than it was under Redknapp ( and some will say that is because Spurs are a regular CL team now whereas under HR we were mainly in EL)

One point to make about McDermott is that his boss is now Poch - and whatever views McDermott may have ultimately unless he can convince Poch He is correct and Poch is incorrect, the academy ' s success or failure is down to Poch. And that's s why there is little on McDermott in the thread - his choice is to either stay and work with Poch or go if he doesn't like Poch approach to something and after almost 15 years at Spurs it's going to take a major problem for him to walk.

Meanwhile Poch has promoted him to look after player development implying McDermott' s remit is now greater than the academy, and maybe that means McDermott has more things to be proud of and not just the academy at Sours
 
Good post.

Go back 5 years or so and Spurs had a top academy set up. However a lot of other clubs have put the time effort and money in with the result there's a lot of decent academies out there now which also means it's ever more competitive to get the best youngsters to Spurs.

In terms of coaches, when McDermott joined in about 2005 he brought in a number of good youth coaches like Inglethorpe ( although I read somewhere that he joined Spurs independently of McDermott and at about the same time,) Ramsey et al - and I suspect at the time it was a great adventure to set up from scratch a top academy when this was novel. Problem now is it's got very competitive to get in good coaches.

My personal guess is that Spurs ( now the stadium is built and revenues much greater) probably need to reassess the budget given to the academy to improve both the quality of youngsters coming in and indeed the coaching staff. And there is the thorny question as to how to progress the kids from age 18/19 through to first team which is now poorer than it was under Redknapp ( and some will say that is because Spurs are a regular CL team now whereas under HR we were mainly in EL)

One point to make about McDermott is that his boss is now Poch - and whatever views McDermott may have ultimately unless he can convince Poch He is correct and Poch is incorrect, the academy ' s success or failure is down to Poch. And that's s why there is little on McDermott in the thread - his choice is to either stay and work with Poch or go if he doesn't like Poch approach to something and after almost 15 years at Spurs it's going to take a major problem for him to walk.

Meanwhile Poch has promoted him to look after player development implying McDermott' s remit is now greater than the academy, and maybe that means McDermott has more things to be proud of and not just the academy at Sours
McDermott has turned down Utd. so I'm going to take that as a state that he's happy with his role at Tottenham.

In your last para, you mention his role expanded to player development, what is that and who's he developing if it's not academy players. Can we say he's successful at it given the apparent dearth of players putting their heads above the fence?
 
McDermott has turned down Utd. so I'm going to take that as a state that he's happy with his role at Tottenham.

In your last para, you mention his role expanded to player development, what is that and who's he developing if it's not academy players. Can we say he's successful at it given the apparent dearth of players putting their heads above the fence?

Re last para this came from a club announcement about 3 years ago saying his role was now Head of Coaching and Player Development, possibly to head off the allure of Manu and a few others. Quite what that role covers is anyone"s guess.
 
No one and I mean no one has a thing to say about him. In this thread, the Spurs Youth Thread, there is a lot of talk about Poch, hardly anything about McDermott, the man responsible for the Academy.

McDermott's reach is deep in the football side of the club, he's on the transfer committee or whatever it's called. I think it's great that he is as it shows that there is planning involved which you would have thought includes the discussion and inclusion of possible academy players. A process of player identification about who he thinks is looking good, what they need to develop in order to be considered for Snr squad inclusion/selection and over what timeframe. To have this discussion about identifying these players helps Hitchin scout the players in the positions that AREN'T looking likely of making a breakthrough (I assume Hitchin also has a hand in player identification of academy players at other academies??).

I digress though. All the negative talk about the academy right now has Poch's name stamped on it, not McDermott's, despite losing Parker (I do understand why he would take a PL managers job), Kieran McKenna, Inglethorpe & Matt Wells. Whilst recruiting the much-maligned Wayne Burnett and his woeful U23 side who play the most un-Tottenham like football I've seen. If Poch is being criticised then surely the man responsible for the academy must also shoulder some of the blame/responsibility too.

Everything I've ever heard about McDermott has been of the highest praise, the snippets we've heard from him too I like, he comes across very well. The snippets of the standards he sets and the measurement of players I really like and yet here we are under his leadership moaning about players not breaking through.

Whilst it can be debated until the cows come home about the qualities of player 'X', 'Y' or 'Z' and if they have the quality to make it or not ONLY Kane and Winks have genuinely shown they have, with Skipp tapping on the door. I'd include KWP in that as my eyes tell me he is and has always been a better more technical footballer than Frodo, but the and to coin a Pochism, "reality" is he hasn't.

Don't confuse this as a rant, I just want to know more about the workings of the academy. I want to get under the skin of it and rather just say Poch is the roadblock to players making it, I want to know is McDermott is happy, complicit or responsible.

I do not have a happy vibe right now about our academy and it's not solely about KWP not being selected, it's about our U23 being shit and having them playing a poor brand of football. It's about losing numerous key and quality coaches (Inglethorpe, Parker, Wells, McKenna and go further back Chris Ramsey).

Is this all down to Poch?

I think all those coaches left to further their careers. I don’t think it was anything to do with McDermott. Though I’m pretty sure in Inglethorpe’s case, having that cocknocker Sherwood, who couldn’t coach and had no qualifications to coach, put his name to Inglethorpe’s hard work possibly didn’t help. In fact there was an article recently by Inglethorpe praising McDermott as the best in the business:


As far as u23’s football goes, it was exactly the same under Ehiogu, with many bemoaning the football being played. The problem with U23’s football is it’s a mishmash of disparate groups, the most promising teens, u17’s, u18’s, u19’s, that are getting fast tracked, the players who’ve been kept around because they fill a remit but aren’t quite good enough for the first team or to get decent loans, the odd first teamer who needs fitness or who has fallen completely out of favour etc etc Also we know that McDermott's ethos isn't about team results, but individual development, which means some quirky tactical choices at times that don;'t always make for good football, they don't even make the individual's look good at times, but are about teaching them something or strengthening weak parts of their game.

As far as the transfer committee goes, it's no longer a committee as such, nobody has close to the influence on it that Poch does now, and I certainly don’t believe McDermott has much at all. I've read interviews by McDermott stating that Poch also decides which kids get promoted up etc and he's got so much respect for Poch he pretty much trusts his judgement.

Surely it’s in McDermott’s interest to see academy players succeed, I do not believe for a nano second he’d be pushing for us to sign Aurier rather than see KWP get more games, but he defers to Poch completely now. I think it's a bit of a shame - and why I wish we had a DOF between Levy and Poch to push harder for the likes of KWP to be given better chances.

I have said this for much of the last couple of years, but I think Poch has actually lost his way a bit in this regard. It was pushing those hungry kids Mason, Kane, Bentaleb that gave us an energy and aggression that we've lost a bit of along the journey. Winks and KWP have it, and I just wish he'd been braver with the academy products - and even if they'd not all turned out to be world beaters, I still think they'd have given us something that some of our recent purchases haven't in terms of hunger energy and dynamism. And we might have more options now and some fresher legs and minds.
 
So Maximus Tainio has now signed on pro terms with the club. A versatile midfielder that can also operate as a right back.

Can he play against Everton?
 
McDermott has turned down Utd. so I'm going to take that as a state that he's happy with his role at Tottenham.

In your last para, you mention his role expanded to player development, what is that and who's he developing if it's not academy players. Can we say he's successful at it given the apparent dearth of players putting their heads above the fence?

Point I didn't perhaps emphasise enough in the post you are replying to is that whilst McDermott might recommend which of the youngsters Poch might want to look at , Pic.h obviously makes the decision as to who he will look at in the first team - and rightly so.

However whilst the academy has brought through s number of players who are technically gifted but small or slight - a number of youngsters who are technically good but large eg Loftus Cheek are hoovered up by Chelsea on huge salaries - but we know Poch prefers larger players which means Poch is asking the academy to produce different types of players to which it is used to producing. Poch also prefers older players ( and to be fair McDermott is on record as saying he thinks most players going into PL will be say Age 22). But of course in the real world the youngsters are not prepared to wait until 22 to have a chance - reason very simply is that it is possibly a chance ....which is why academies are losing a lot of the best talent to European sides who are prepared to play youngsters at 19 or 20. So in this case both need to observe what is going on and deal with that situation.

KWP has waited until 22 but has played more games for E u21' than for Spurs at any level over the last 3 years. And is arguably no closer to the first team than 3 years ago.

I cannot see too many other youngsters following KWP approach of waiting for Godot.
 
I was just wondering whether there was a chance of Sterling being involved v Everton and noticed he has been getting about 30 mins in a couple of recent Sunderland games and they have made the play-offs.
 
Point I didn't perhaps emphasise enough in the post you are replying to is that whilst McDermott might recommend which of the youngsters Poch might want to look at , Pic.h obviously makes the decision as to who he will look at in the first team - and rightly so.

However whilst the academy has brought through s number of players who are technically gifted but small or slight - a number of youngsters who are technically good but large eg Loftus Cheek are hoovered up by Chelsea on huge salaries - but we know Poch prefers larger players which means Poch is asking the academy to produce different types of players to which it is used to producing. Poch also prefers older players ( and to be fair McDermott is on record as saying he thinks most players going into PL will be say Age 22). But of course in the real world the youngsters are not prepared to wait until 22 to have a chance - reason very simply is that it is possibly a chance ....which is why academies are losing a lot of the best talent to European sides who are prepared to play youngsters at 19 or 20. So in this case both need to observe what is going on and deal with that situation.

KWP has waited until 22 but has played more games for E u21' than for Spurs at any level over the last 3 years. And is arguably no closer to the first team than 3 years ago.

I cannot see too many other youngsters following KWP approach of waiting for Godot.
Yeah good point there mate.

It's going to be interesting what happens with KWP next year. Based on absolutely nothing other than gut feel (KWP is ALLWAYS smiling, always in the group celebrating victories, always supporting the selected members of the team by clapping them off at the tunnel etc. etc. etc..) is that he will remain at Spurs and that he will get substantially more minutes. We will see with far more clarity of what happens to academy products that do exactly what the Manager asks of them, the ones that don't go out on loan, that stay with the group and are fully integrated into the squad. If he doesn't then I'll rip up the Poch textbook on academy players.

It is still telling that Foyth and Sanchez who have been purchased are under 22yrs and have racked up minutes played. I like both of these players, especially Foyth, who I think will be an absolute diamond and I think have been worthy inclusions in the first team but still can't get my head around Frodo being ahead of Walker-Peters.

FWIW - I don't think Loftus-Cheek is that technical a player, I'd go so far as to say he lacks the technical ability of a top player. I think it's his size and physical ability that got him to this point in his career but to my eyes, he's got all the finesse of Sissoko. He will have a successful career (in monetary terms) but he'll be a Walcott or a Towsend, I think pundits will be debating where his best position is for the next decade, avoiding the fact that he might not be as technically good as he's hyped up to be. (he'll now go on to be the next Ronaldo).
 
Yeah good point there mate.

It's going to be interesting what happens with KWP next year. Based on absolutely nothing other than gut feel (KWP is ALLWAYS smiling, always in the group celebrating victories, always supporting the selected members of the team by clapping them off at the tunnel etc. etc. etc..) is that he will remain at Spurs and that he will get substantially more minutes. We will see with far more clarity of what happens to academy products that do exactly what the Manager asks of them, the ones that don't go out on loan, that stay with the group and are fully integrated into the squad. If he doesn't then I'll rip up the Poch textbook on academy players.

It is still telling that Foyth and Sanchez who have been purchased are under 22yrs and have racked up minutes played. I like both of these players, especially Foyth, who I think will be an absolute diamond and I think have been worthy inclusions in the first team but still can't get my head around Frodo being ahead of Walker-Peters.

FWIW - I don't think Loftus-Cheek is that technical a player, I'd go so far as to say he lacks the technical ability of a top player. I think it's his size and physical ability that got him to this point in his career but to my eyes, he's got all the finesse of Sissoko. He will have a successful career (in monetary terms) but he'll be a Walcott or a Towsend, I think pundits will be debating where his best position is for the next decade, avoiding the fact that he might not be as technically good as he's hyped up to be. (he'll now go on to be the next Ronaldo).

A point I have made before, so might be boring, but Poch seems to prefer to take on youngsters who have played a bit elsewhere before they come under his tutelage.

So the likes of Kane Bentaleb and many others with some playing time behind them got Poch attention and there is no doubt Poch improved them.

But of the ones who have come through the academy only Winks has come through without any previous playing time with anyone else in the 5 years he's been here - obviously we hope for more including Skipp, KWP and maybe Amos....but I suspect the likes of Onomah and Edwards may not. Plenty of other potential candidates such as Jamie Bowden who has been 19th man a few times now. But the bare stats of only Winks making it in 5 years doesn't give me confidence.

Given Poch liking for taking on youngsters with some experience I'd like to see Spurs sending a few to clubs trusted to train the kids - maybe Portsmouth where Kenny Jackett is manager ( and coached at Spurs for s few months before taking the job), decent manager who started the Swansea revolution before the likes of Rogers and Martinez. In other words a few relationships such as we had with Swindon s few years ago.

But of course Poch said he is not in favour of loans , although that seems to have been relaxed a bit.

But if he is not going to embrace loans I think we need to buy s few raw youngsters such as Dan James (Swansea) for Poch to develop whilst sending many of the academy 18 year olds out permanently keeping only a select few ( Parrott White Cirkin Bennett......).

In other words solve the problems of what to do with youngsters from 18 to 21 which we are further from solving than pre Poch, alarmingly.

Btw agreed on Loftus Cheek but he is almost the stereotypical Chelsea youth player and as you say may not be great but will certainly make a career in PL
 
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