The Spurs Youth Thread - 2017/2018

IGSpur said:

Don't doubt that but depends what you mean by form. There are players who I personally don't think are playing that well or contributing much (I know I'm not Poch) where arguably you could send a message to said player by leaving him out of the squad, and giving a chance to a talented young player, who has performed well for the youth teams and worked hard. It would hopefully put pressure on main player and reward the young player.

What seems to be happening for us, is players aren't getting a chance, or Kane only got his chance due to a crisis or an extreme circumstance, involving a perfect storm of both our highest paid player AND our most expensive player both scoring zero goals AND our academy player scoring goals in a competition which we are no longer in.

I don't think these things should come down to chance, when we have invested so much money in the academy and are seeing that we are producing better players than ever before. It is essentially saying that everything is coming down to luck or chance, which I completely disagree with. Additionally if a young player is showing ability again I think they should be rewarded and less pressure games. Ironically, I believe, and you may not, that if Soldado and/or Ade had scored 5 goals before November, Kane may never have got his chance as their form wouldn't have been bad enough. Kane would likely have left, and ina lower league people would assume he would never have been good enough for us.

I think we are essentially saying the same thing, but my threshold for losing form would be lower than yours and most likely Poch's. As I always say there should be more clear pathways rather than relying on chance and crisis situations, we should be more proactive in using our academy like other leagues, whereas if/when we do use it it is reactive. Again I'm not saying, player A has a bad game drop him for an academy player. But if player A is having a month or 2 of poor form and academy player is doing well, why not give them a go. The difficulty though is what is considered poor from. For a striker it's a lot more simple to measure than it is for any other position, which also helped Kane's case.

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If there was a talented kid that I knew that had a few clubs after him, I would personally advise not to sign for spurs or chelsea, I would say go Fulham or Man City

Man City you may only get the chance if you're very talented but they have given a few of their youth players a decent taste of football this season

I would also look at making a change at the academy at the end of the season if things dont get better

IGSpur said:

I thought that too. In the league we always have good fairly even matches, but when we face them in FAYC they generally tend to batter us. I've thought in the past it may be due to the pressure of playing in front of big crowds, and big games, which they are more used to, but it is strange

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i guess in today's example they have a few players to come into the fayc side like james, sterling, hudson-odoi and taylor-crossdale so if we were to face them again they'll be stronger whereas we were more or less at full-strength bar tob and maybe lock for reynolds - it's strange how this group have no natural left backs whereas the older lot have brown, tsaroulla and now bennetts playing there. if we do face them in the cup again you'd hope they'd do better than last year's result though

IGSpur said:

Cheers for the updates, car tyre popped last night and spent all morning trying to find a replacement so missed out. Sounds like a good game.

How did Richards only get a yellow.

And I know he scored two pens but shows what Skipp was up against with Gallagher going to World Cup ahead of him. Another DM who also picks up goals. As we know so many good options for that age group.



RE JLB I think the fact we don't have many natural winners plus Clarke being injured has helped him, but he has more than deserved his place now. He is quite tall for a winger I guess, a little but shorter than Oduwa at a similar age I would guess. I obviously haven't seen loads but from little I have seen, less street ball skills, but has skill and pace to beat his man. @edson how did he get on in this match?

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He played very well in the first half a constant threat down the wing with quick feet and the ability to cross a ball.

Faded a bit late in the second half but what I like about him is he is very vocal.

This was one of the best youth Games I have been too in a long time and we should have had a pen towards the end of the match.

WindyCOYS said:

I've wanted to see Eyoma get a run at CB for ages. I would be playing him there at U23 level with Hinds (or even KWP) at RB.

Looks like Lloyd-Bennett is fully integrated into the U18s now, which is fairly early - generally we've seen this happen after Christmas. They must really fancy him.

Having never seen him, what sort of player is he?

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What he has shown so far he has made a instant impact to the first team for the u18s, because he gives the team balance but he has a confidence about him, but in a very good way, he is vocal and has good pace,can use both feet and can cross a ball,he is not perfect he has a habit of not tracking his man when he is defending but this is not because he is not willing it is more that at his age he does not know any better.

Blake Griffin said:

shame we didn't manage to hold on. just noticed that blf went off at 4-2 which couldn't have helped, was he injured or just not playing well?

we've had so many 4-3s 4-4s and 5-4s with chelsea over the past few seasons so you're pretty much guaranteed an entertaining game whenever we play them.

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If Griffiths stays on late in the second half we win this match.

Griffiths goes off because he has a knock and we have Richards moving up top who cannot hold the ball up but does have the ability to punch two scumbags and get away with it.

edson said:

Griffiths goes off because he has a knock and we have Richards moving up top who cannot hold the ball up but does have the ability to punch two scumbags and get away with it.

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Not a fan of Richards? I've been very impressed with him. Granted not as big as Griffiths but thought his hold up play is decent

Not sure I would say it was the 'perfect storm' in the way that Rashford appeared to be a 'perfect storm', as Kane was getting minutes in Europa, but luck and opportunity plays a big part in a lot of young players careers.

In Poch's book he said Kane had developed bad habits, and was more of a back to goal #10 type, playing like an old pro, and they had to coach him into being more aggressive, running in behind etc. If he was thrown in before he'd re-learned these concepts and what Poch wanted from him as a striker, would we be seeing the same player that we have now?

Also, it is clear his work ethic is out of this world, and I am of the general consensus that the cream rises to the top. Given his work rate, his ability to shoot with both feet, if the 'perfect storm' didn't arise at Spurs and he did leave and go to the championship or wherever, given how good he is, would he not have made it anyway? After all, he's not a 10-15 goal a season striker, he's nearly a goal a game striker in the top league of English football.

Given how good Kane is now and the reports of how good his attitude is, I feel even if it didn't work out at Spurs he'd have found his way back to the prem and playing at a similar level. I suppose the beauty of it is that we will never know.

Going off that principle and if people are of the same school of thought, what happened/will happen with the below players. Just some of the guys I saw play who I thought were great. Are they losses, and are they operating at the requisite level, that they would get in our matchday squads and shouldn't have been let go?

Alex Prtichard - I was a big fan and would've like to see him in 1st team squad, and he maybe would have but then had that injury and then was sold. Since then haven't heard much from him.

Milos Veljkoic - Playing for Werder Bremen who are currently 3rd bottom in Bundesliga

Nabil Bentaleb - Huge fan of him, and feel the emergence of Winks was why he was eventually let go. Is he/will he be of the level that we'd need now?

Ismail Azzaoui - He looked like a terrific winger, and was a shame to lose him. Has he been given opportunity, not heard much since he left.

Nathan Oduwa - Big fan, loved his skill and directness and was a shame he seemed to fall off after looking great for Rangers. What level do we think he'll end up at?

Josh Onomah - Left field option as he hasn't left. I have always rated him slightly higher than Winks. Just a shame that to date he's never been played CM. Doing well it appears at Villa. Will he make it with us? I'd take him back in Jan in a heartbeat and give him Sissoko's minutes. BUT if he doesn't and gets sold, would he eventually make it back to prem and pushing Winks for England honours?

IGSpur said:

Not a fan of Richards? I've been very impressed with him. Granted not as big as Griffiths but thought his hold up play is decent

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Griffiths was having one of them days when everything was going for him and he looked well up for it and was giving the Chelsea back line a lot of problems and when he went off we lost that,Griffiths scored 2 but he could have had more.

Agree about Richards he has helped Griffiths a lot in the past few games and he has looked very good playing in the hole.

@majorhank said:

Not sure I would say it was the 'perfect storm' in the way that Rashford appeared to be a 'perfect storm', as Kane was getting minutes in Europa, but luck and opportunity plays a big part in a lot of young players careers.

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If Kane came through now, he would not have got those games to be able to demonstrate he could score. He was there for fortunate we were in the Europa League in his last chance of coming through
If Kane had been in relative poor form during those games, and had not scored as many goals, Kane would not be playing
If Soldado had scored more than 1 goal, despite Kane scoring in EL he would likely not have got his chance
If Adebayor had scored more than 1 goal, despite Kane scoring in the EL he would likely not have got his chance
Finally, the situation was so dire at the time, it took for the fans to start singing his name in November for Poch to finally start him.

We've seen that Poch treats the EL as a 2nd rate cup and along with the Carling Cup, he will use it as his only opportuntiy to give starts to academy players, which is still a rare occurance.
We've seen even with KWP, that even if you play well in your few matches, including a MOTM performance, all the players ahead of you have to do, is not perform to an absolute terrible standard and they will still be picked ahead of you. Heck even Winks only managed 3 starts until April, and Onomah couldn't get chances over Sissoko who was consistently one of the worse players I had seen last season, was still seen as deserving of playing ahead of them.

So as I say a perfect storm.

@majorhank said:

In Poch's book he said Kane had developed bad habits, and was more of a back to goal #10 type, playing like an old pro, and they had to coach him into being more aggressive, running in behind etc. If he was thrown in before he'd re-learned these concepts and what Poch wanted from him as a striker, would we be seeing the same player that we have now?

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Well, as often gets ignored, a lot of people could see Kane was more than good enough to be a Premier League striker before Poch got his hands on him. Poch probably made him better, but Kane had proved the season before he was good enough for the PL and when Sherwood gave him starts he showed in those few games he could find the back of the net regularly. I don't know how much work Poch believes he could have made on Kane in 2 months, but Kane was also already scoring in the EL before Poch 'worked his magic'. Kane was as good as he was due to McDermott, no doubt Poch has helped develop him from there, but Kane doesn't have Poch to thank for PL standard, he has Poch to thank to continue to develop him from here.

@majorhank said:

Also, it is clear his work ethic is out of this world, and I am of the general consensus that the cream rises to the top. Given his work rate, his ability to shoot with both feet, if the 'perfect storm' didn't arise at Spurs and he did leave and go to the championship or wherever, given how good he is, would he not have made it anyway? After all, he's not a 10-15 goal a season striker, he's nearly a goal a game striker in the top league of English football.

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In the world of PL football that general consensus is wrong. English academies are the best in the world, and produce better players than their contemporaries, I don't like using the word but it is as close to a fact as you can get. Coaches across Europe know it, and it now has tangible evidence after what happened last summer, and yet English academy players have less chance of coming through than their contemporaries abroad. We are blocking and putting more obstacles in the way than wee should. The cream won't rise to the top if it is being stopped. It's this old school thinking that results in people thinking nothing has to change about English football as all will be alright in the end. I ask, why can other countries bring through their lesser players than England, and rightly some will say the money in the PL affects the development and there you go that is an obstacle blocking the cream.

Regarding your 2nd point, are you saying that he is the way he is because of Poch or not? If ti is because of Poch, who did all that work he did on Kane, as he mentioned in his book then why would he go on to be a success anywhere else, as he hasn't learned his trade from the man?

As I said Kane had all those qualities before but going to other clubs is a tricky thing. Playing around better players makes you better. Kane while being a quality player also gets loads of chances. Like people writing off Villa who play dire football, Kane only really had one successful loan and that was at Millwall. He went on quite a few loans and struggles. The type of team you play in, your surroundings including people you grew up with and no doubt your ties to a club can all affect how you play. What's to say Kane went to the Championship again like he did with Leicester and struggle to fit in? I'm sure you and many others wrote him off after that loan, so why would something different have happened if he went out again? There is no harm in trying out our own players before moving them on especially as so many can play to a PL standard. Do you think Onomah has more ability than Sissoko, why not show him the patience we showed Sissoko?

@majorhank said:

Given how good Kane is now and the reports of how good his attitude is, I feel even if it didn't work out at Spurs he'd have found his way back to the prem and playing at a similar level. I suppose the beauty of it is that we will never know.

Going off that principle and if people are of the same school of thought, what happened/will happen with the below players. Just some of the guys I saw play who I thought were great. Are they losses, and are they operating at the requisite level, that they would get in our matchday squads and shouldn't have been let go?

Alex Prtichard - I was a big fan and would've like to see him in 1st team squad, and he maybe would have but then had that injury and then was sold. Since then haven't heard much from him.

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Ted Knutson of StatsBomb fame (mixedknuts on twitter though he is a Gooner supporer so maybe best not) was on the Indy Football weekly podcast a few weeks back talking about Pritchard and recounted he had heard that year the plan was to bring through one attacking midfielder/midfielder, either Pritchard or a new young signing the club had just made, Dele Alli, and the other would be loaned/sold. We know how that went.

Not sure how valid his information is but considering Pritchard's injury and Dele's explosion onto the scene, it seems plausible.

@majorhank said:

Given how good Kane is now and the reports of how good his attitude is, I feel even if it didn't work out at Spurs he'd have found his way back to the prem and playing at a similar level. I suppose the beauty of it is that we will never know.

Going off that principle and if people are of the same school of thought, what happened/will happen with the below players. Just some of the guys I saw play who I thought were great. Are they losses, and are they operating at the requisite level, that they would get in our matchday squads and shouldn't have been let go?

Alex Prtichard - I was a big fan and would've like to see him in 1st team squad, and he maybe would have but then had that injury and then was sold. Since then haven't heard much from him.

Milos Veljkoic - Playing for Werder Bremen who are currently 3rd bottom in Bundesliga

Nabil Bentaleb - Huge fan of him, and feel the emergence of Winks was why he was eventually let go. Is he/will he be of the level that we'd need now?

Ismail Azzaoui - He looked like a terrific winger, and was a shame to lose him. Has he been given opportunity, not heard much since he left.

Nathan Oduwa - Big fan, loved his skill and directness and was a shame he seemed to fall off after looking great for Rangers. What level do we think he'll end up at?

Josh Onomah - Left field option as he hasn't left. I have always rated him slightly higher than Winks. Just a shame that to date he's never been played CM. Doing well it appears at Villa. Will he make it with us? I'd take him back in Jan in a heartbeat and give him Sissoko's minutes. BUT if he doesn't and gets sold, would he eventually make it back to prem and pushing Winks for England honours?

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when talking about players who didn't make it, people only tend to want to hear about them again if they became megastars like say pogba when he left utd but whilst we may not be losing world-beaters, they could have at least been players who'd have contributed to the squad and you'll often find that players who come through at a particular side will perform to a higher level there than they would elsewhere - like the numerous examples under alex ferguson's reign at utd.

pritchard - again, it's easy to say look where he's ended up but I still believe he's a quality player and the only reason he's not yet been able to show it at a higher level is because of injuries. now if we were aware of the issues with his ankle and thought it was always going to be a problem then fair enough but it's still frustrating when people downplay his ability. the comparison for pritchard that I always make is jesse lingard. now pritchard had just come off the back of a very successful loan at brentford where he was one of the best players in the league, lingard on the other hand struggled to get into derby's team. they then played together at the u21 euros(where pritchard did his ankle) and pritchard again far outperformed him and now look where the two have gone since. lingards' an england international and regular for a top prem side whilst pritchard's in the championship, I refuse to accept that i'm now supposed to believe that lingard's just a lot better.

here's a few pritchard highlights i put together of him from last season, yes it's only the championship but anyone can see that he has quality - https://streamable.com/i2wgo

veljkovic - I think it's a little disingenuous and also unfair to use the position of bremen against him. they finished 8th last season for a start but even if they are struggling it's not necessarily a reflection of him as a player. the likes of zaha, barkley, lanzini etc also play for sides near the bottom of the league but a lot of fans want us to sign them. if we're talking about defenders only then last summer players like keane, maguire, mawson and gibson were suggested a lot and they'd have all cost 20m+, I think veljkovic is or could have proven to be as good as any of them and we let him go for what, £500k? i'm not saying he's a player we're going to massively regret letting go but again, he could've been a good, solid option for us.

bentaleb - just as you have said, i'm also a huge fan of him. I watched schalke a lot last season and I didn't see more from goretzka(who is being linked to huge clubs) for example than i saw from nabil. with dembele slowing down I think he'd have been the perfect player to take over, somewhat ironically nabil is also having hip issues at the moment so who knows how that will effect him going forward though. a lot was said about his perceived attitude issues but I never saw him as a bad egg, he just believed in himself and wanted to play, surely we could've done more to keep him?

azzaoui - I was never quite as high on him as most but I still would have liked him to stay, I don't think this one is on the club though. he was only 17 when he left and wasn't going to renew his deal, could we have done more? maybe we could loaned him out on the basis that he was to extend his contract but we always like to keep young players in house so we may not have been willing to do that. think this one was just unfortunate - just as he was as he did his cruciates soon after leaving. he's now on loan at willem in holland and starting to show flashes of his ability, will be interesting to see how he does in the future.

oduwa - I wasn't ever really a fan so for me I wasn't worried at seeing him go. he does have something but he needs a ton of work and he'd never have gotten the time to work through it here but then we have also signed similarly rough-around-the-edges players in njie and nkoduou and I don't think oduwa would have done any less - obviously we were expecting much more from those two players though so that's not really the point.

onomah - similar to bentaleb, I love him and I pray it works out for him but it's just so frustrating when you watch him be so good in one position and then so bad(relatively) in another and it's the latter that he's only ever played in at senior level. it's not even because of the jump between youth and first team football, it's always been the case at every age group he's played in. I saw @IGSpur say the other day that josh could play #10 for us but this is one of those rare occasions that I disagree with him as I just can't stand to see him play anywhere that isn't cm, I really do think he's best operating in deeper areas of the pitch than most realise, even the suggestions of him playing as one of the twin "8s" in our system I think is a bit of a stretch.

it's kind of a relief for me when internationals come around as I know i'll get to see him play in his actual position and nine times out of ten he'll be one of the best players on the pitch. he and winks were due to play alongside each other for the u21s before the latter got a senior call-up, would have been interesting to see them play together as whilst most would expect winks to show he's on a different level I think what probably would have happened is that they'd have looked equally good in their own way. hopefully we get to see for ourselves at some point in the future but I am worried at how it's going for josh at the moment.

In the world of PL football that general consensus is wrong. English academies are the best in the world, and produce better players than their contemporaries, I don't like using the word but it is as close to a fact as you can get. Coaches across Europe know it, and it now has tangible evidence after what happened last summer, and yet English academy players have less chance of coming through than their contemporaries abroad. We are blocking and putting more obstacles in the way than wee should. The cream won't rise to the top if it is being stopped. It's this old school thinking that results in people thinking nothing has to change about English football as all will be alright in the end. I ask, why can other countries bring through their lesser players than England, and rightly some will say the money in the PL affects the development and there you go that is an obstacle blocking the cream.

Because the French, dutch, spanish league etc don't have the same funds as prem, these foreign youngsters are breaking through at generally weaker sides with lesser competition for places. That being said, they are showing there quality in these lesser sides culminating in big money moves to top European sides. Surely that's an example of the cream rising to the top, no?

If these boys dropped down a league, or went to lesser sides, would they too not show there quality and rise back up through the ranks? Obv there has been a recent trend of some of these boys going abroad, so I suppose we will see what happens with them in 3-4 years time.

Could the fact that there is so much money in the English game not only be the problem that squads are being stockpiled with foreign players, but also that these English clubs can pay academy products soo much money compared to there foreign contemporaries that they don't have the same hunger to succeed and develop?

edson said:

Griffiths was having one of them days when everything was going for him and he looked well up for it and was giving the Chelsea back line a lot of problems and when he went off we lost that,Griffiths scored 2 but he could have had more.

Agree about Richards he has helped Griffiths a lot in the past few games and he has looked very good playing in the hole.

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do you know why lyons-foster went off? did skipp go to cb after that or hinds?

edson said:

Bennett got a heavy knock in the first half and was down for a bit of time but he was OK,he was not as effective as much in the second half and I did not notice him going off, must have been late in the match.
Skipp played CM all game and Hinds played on the right of a back 3 all game.

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lyons-foster, not lloyd-bennett

spurs os report says clarke came on for lyons-foster after 70 mins. just seems a strange sub on the face of it as it would've left eyoma as the only cb.

Blake Griffin said:

lyons-foster, not lloyd-bennett

spurs os report says clarke came on for lyons-foster after 70 mins. just seems a strange sub on the face of it as it would've left eyoma as the only cb.

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Sorry one too many beers last night,I did not notice it was him that went off,could only have been a injury because he was playing well so Eyoma would have shifted across but I am not 100% sure about that.

WindyCOYS said:

It's been a really interesting week of debate on here, and I generally have found myself in agreement with @IGSpur and @Blake Griffin. I've debated whether to bother posting anything on my blog or not as people in less-informed circles than this fantastic thread basically tend to give it the whole 'you just love youth players' response. But I wanted to articulate something because I think this area is one of Pochettino's very few failings so far at Spurs. Our squad is small but he could have made it a lot deeper by integrating more youngsters by this point.

Also, selfishly, it's quite useful to benchmark how I feel at this point in time and then to look again in 6-12 months to see how things have moved on.

http://windycoys.com/2017/12/when-does-spurs-young-talent-get-a-chance/

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I of course thought you made some great points.

I also think with Edwards everyone turns into a body language expert like they did with Vertonghen and do with Alli, Edwards can't play a game of football without someone trying to read and post how he was behaving. It is so ridiculous, and while I like his work I don't think Ally Gold helps as most of his summaries and headlines include Edwards' name. I know he is ultimately a journalist at the end of the day, and will have to somewhat pander to what the fans want to hear, but that is just as much of the problem. The fans keep asking about Edwards so people write about Edwards and it's a vicious cycle, where he cant play a game of football in peace. And after all of that, people will criticise Edwards for having not reached his hype and ask what all the fuss is about and get annoyed when he has done nothing wrong. He barely even uses social media but this issue has been created, by hear say and Poch. In fact on his instagram the other day he posted a clip saying how happy and pleased he was for Sterling, N'Koudou and the team. Doesn't sound like he is upset or moody there.

There was a really good article written the other day. I think it was by Seb-Stafford or something about how every game Spurs are either over acheiving or underachieving, and people can't just let a game go by as a game. It's the same with our players and Edwards in particular. My view has been built up from watching Edwards since he was young and assessing him before realising he has the ability to play for the first team now. But it seems every game Edwards plays whether he has a good or bad game, someone will either come in here and go, see this is why he should eb playing for the first team, or see this is what Poch is talking about he clearly isn't ready yet, it's madness.

The other excellent point I thought you made, and I was going to write similar but thought it would be overkill on the topic, is about how all players are different. Treating people fairly, or equally doesn't equate to treating someone the same. Poch apparently is waiting for Edwards to show some sort of workrate, but what is the baseline for that. Lamela, runs harder than everyone else in the team , no one expects everyone to be like that, similar Eriksen regularly runs the furthest we don't criticise anyone for running less distance than Eriksen, so clearly there are adjustments made for what acceptable workrate is. I don't know who runs the least in the whole squad, but if there is no base line for this, then Poch is free to say for as long as he wants that Edwards isn't working hard enough, Is he meant to work as hard as Lamela or Sissoko, I imagine it can be very confusing, when there are different work rates in the team, and your natural work rate isn't as high as others but it is expected to be the highest.

Saying all the above though, one player I'm quite surprised that never got a chance against APOEL was Shashoua, he has abiltiy, and isn't an apparen't troublemaker, I thnik he also works hard so I thought he would have had a decent chance of getting a run out.

I obviously agree with what you say also about credit only going one way. I'm just glad that Winks eventually got his chance, but we hear how Poch timed things perfectly, as if he couldn't have been given chances sooner, or Kane is now where he is because of what Poch is done, but if a player doesn't come through it is down to the player. I don't really understand how that works. He and other managers are in one of the few positions in life, where none of their judgement can be questions and they can be absolved of any responsibility.

I also love the bias comments, as if coincidentally, you're ability to judge a player objectively, completely diminishes once you start judging youth football. We can watch PL or other league football and say who s good enough for our first team, but when you watch the academy you lose that ability. The belief is that we just want these players in the team for banter essentially, when we only want the players to improve our first team. While no doubt you will have more of a 'bond' with one you've watched since they were 16 and as they come from the academy, the same feeling people get when Kane plays, why would we want someone to play who will be a detriment t them team. What you or anyone else get for wanting an academy player to play for our first team if they're not good enough. Can someone please explain what this bias is? I keep reading that what makes having a World Class striker even better is that they're from the academy so if it doesn't affect anyone else why would it affect anyone else. Some people are very critical of our academy players in fact so I assume it's just as an excuse to shut people down. Anyone who has watched a significant amount of youth matches would agree that KWP, Onomah and Edwards are 3 of the best players we have produced. They are 3 players that everyone feels that could be featuring in our first team squad, they've all performed consistently at youth level but all coincidentally have some issue that stops them playing for us

KWP - u20 World Cup winner, but not better than our other 2 RBs. Although Jeremy Toljan was an acceptable signing over the summer after winnign Euro u21s

Onomah - u20 World Cup winner if he can't handle the Championship how can he play for us?

Edwards - u19 Euros winner, small, angry, weak, lazy, entitled, rich, contract rebel...allegedly

There is no guarantee all 3 players would bang for us if given a chance, but none have let us down so far. why can't they be thought of as signings and given the same treatment.

@majorhank said:

Because the French, dutch, spanish league etc don't have the same funds as prem, these foreign youngsters are breaking through at generally weaker sides with lesser competition for places. That being said, they are showing there quality in these lesser sides culminating in big money moves to top European sides. Surely that's an example of the cream rising to the top, no?

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No one is questioning foreign leagues. I don't doubt that the best players in other European leagues will get chances for their first team, when relatively average players like N'Koudou are also getting chances. The problem we're discussing is Spurs and English football. The cream will not always rise to the top here.

@majorhank said:

If these boys dropped down a league, or went to lesser sides, would they too not show there quality and rise back up through the ranks? Obv there has been a recent trend of some of these boys going abroad, so I suppose we will see what happens with them in 3-4 years time.

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Maybe but again, they're having to take 1/2 steps back to maybe go 3 steps forward. Like we established with Kane, he struggled on 3 out of 4 of his loans, What's to say he would have come back. He would have left at 22 likely to a Championship club and with everything going for him and him still turning out the player he is, he wouldn't be able to get a move fro at least a couple of years, then he would be trying to establish himself again in a new team with new pressures. There are all kinds of reasons why players may not work at other clubs. As @Blake Griffin pointed out also not everyone has to be a megastar to bite us in the arse. Each on of the players you listed as failiure if they ad been given a chance likely would have ended up costing another club 20m were they to leave, just by being a squad player and saved us loads of money on wages we could have used to buy top quality. Everyone wants to buy players from clubs at the bottom of the PL or in Championship , like Maddison or Hause but apparently Veljkovic being in the bottom 3 is a reason he is failing. Ironically he has recently been called up to the Serbia national team and could be going to the World Cup so they obviosuly don't think he is failing, and reading WB's fans forum neither do they. No imagine if he had got a chance here, playing among better players, in a club he knows and is comfrotable at, in an envionrment he has lived in for 5 years how much more settled he would be. He may have been excelelnt for us.

Either way, this whole, so and so isn't pulling up trees now, so clearly he was never good enough could apply to the following players, this forums sweared by and wanted us to sign at one points but have all failed at one club or another or are struggling now.

Soldado, Torres, Forlan, Falcao, Luke De jong, Siem De Jong, Adam Maher, Clasie, Schneiderlin, Imbula, McCarthy, Shaqiri, Bojan, Marin, Mangla, Veron, Di Maria, Kezman, Musacchi, Ballotelli, Depay Schevchenko and so many more, plus signings made by the infallible man himself, Stambouli, Osvaldo, N'Jie,

These are players that fans wanted to us to sign to improve our first team, the same way I think we have academy players that could have improved our first team. Yet when the players above flopped or struggle excuses are made like, we don't play to their strength, or they needed time to acclimatise, but when academy players don't make it, it's they were never good enough look at where they are now. I know some of them have done great things in the past but it reinforces my point that even prove top quality players at one club can absolutely bomb at another, but it doesn't mean those players were never talented.

@majorhank said:

Could the fact that there is so much money in the English game not only be the problem that squads are being stockpiled with foreign players, but also that these English clubs can pay academy products soo much money compared to there foreign contemporaries that they don't have the same hunger to succeed and develop?

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I'm sure the Gerrard age group were paid comparatively more money than people in normal jobs at the same age yet, this accusation is never made at their generation, because they hung boots up or something. This money thing may affect some people, Dos Santos and Bostock spring to mind but they are also players that were signed to be fist teamers. Why would an academy player who's worked their whole life to become a first team footballer, dedicated and sacrificed social lives, diet, remember these players are monitored by clubs to get within touching distance of their dream only to decide they no longer have the desire to play Prem football. Just sounds like more reasons to find reasons why these players are being constantly mismanaged. I mean Edwards and Sancho, 2 players with the bad boy tags, turned down massive contracts with City when they've done relatively little to stay/go at/to a club which pay considerably less money than they would have received as they were more focussed on doing the right thing and thinking about their pathway to the first team. If they were only there for the money, Onomah too, why wouldn't they have taken it?

Blake Griffin said:

I saw @IGSpur say the other day that josh could play #10 for us but this is one of those rare occasions that I disagree with him as I just can't stand to see him play anywhere that isn't cm, I really do think he's best operating in deeper areas of the pitch than most realise, even the suggestions of him playing as one of the twin "8s" in our system I think is a bit of a stretch.

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I definitley get what you mean but do you not think he'd be able to function in a 4141 in one of the 2 behind the striker?I think he'd be able to play there to a very good standard. I agree he isn't your traditional no.10 and I think he is a lot better as a CM but I think he could do well there

Apparently us and arsenal & Liverpool are after Liam Cullen at Swansea

This came directly from someone at Swansea.