The All New Spurs U21, U18 & Other Youth News Thread

[loaderspurs]

Once again another hugely impressive and thought provoking post from Kingsrv. While I wholeheartedly agree that this will undoubtedly be good for the English national team, and will help promote development in all teams there are still a few issues I have with the proposals.

The first has been highlighted, and pretty much answered by the aforementioned post, in that if this is to be effectively implemented protection needs to be given to the academies at lower end clubs. All these proposals will see in the current situation is the big clubs hoovering up talent at a younger age, and there will be inevitable issues of the bottleneck to the first team and a lot of talent stagnating. We already see this now at the big clubs, and it will only get worse if nothing is done to protect clubs like WBA, mk dons etc. I wasn't aware of the change to agents rules, and that will help massively, but there will still be the appeal of going to a huge club like lfc, CFC, mcfc, who will say all the right things to get them there. There will be promises of quick development and progression, a route to the first team, but there is no guarantee and the clubs can just as easily break those promises.

As I mentioned before, I also think the massive reduction to what quantifies as a homegrown player is a mistake for the league. I understand it is to stop clubs signing international players who could block opportunities for English talent, but that's not how I would look at it. Players develop the best when they are playing with the best, with different styles, as opposed to in place of the best. These rules will still have a huge impact on the development of English talent even without the massive change to who qualifies as a homegrown player. Those who are good enough will be given opportunities. Using spurs as an example, the likes of veljkovic, azzaoui and bentaleb will have an effect on the players who come through with them, because of their quality and varied styles. Now would you say they are preventing the likes of onomah, oduwa and winks being given an opportunity? In my opinion, no. Those English players will still be assessed and looked at, and given the chance if they are good enough. By taking talent out of the pool they develop with we are actually restricting their development and experience.

The counterpoint people will say to this is that it won't matter, as they can still slot into the non-hg slots, but while that is the case it will invariably stop or slow clubs recruiting internationally, as the risk of having players who are coming through who won't be kept simply because they are not hg. People are already saying veljkovic might not be given a chance at spurs with these rules simply because he's not hg, yet I think I can safely say most here would be of the opinion he is good enough to be a PL player, even if not at spurs.

So while these rules will clearly have an impact on the number of English players playing in the league, I actually think it may have an adverse effect as to the overall quality of those playing.

 

[TottenhamLegend]

Love the fact that when I first saw this video in 2011, it was just some of the youth lads having a bit of fun.

Now 4 of them are in the England squad and another 3 have played in the Premier League for Spurs!

 

[IGSpur]

@KingSRV Fair do's regarding Brown. I was just using the fact that he came from WBA, who I didn't believe have as good a system as Chelsea, as a cheap reason to support the fact that I don't rate him as highly as some of your other players rather than the actual reason. You could say it was rather insular of me . I believe I listed actual reasons for me not rating him as highly as others, as from what I've seen, by chance, he has never really shown enough outside of his actual physical attributes for me to rate him as highly as other players. Not that I don't necessarily think he won't be or isn't PL quality it was more in terms of discussing players we rate highly at the time I believe. The best game I have seen him play, against Italy u19s, RLC impressed me more. The game where he actually played well was when I was at Stamford Bridge last week. Where we were sitting, he was on the other side of the field when attacking the end we were sitting, plus we were chanting a lot so didn't get to see much of him. Got a close up view of Dasilva though. Sadly, I haven't been able to find a rerun of the game anywhere to watch again so don't know how it looked on TV. Anyone know where to find it.

Regarding WBA's academy, when actually laid out I didn't realise how many players they actually had. I was aware Sinclair and Dhanda had come from them, and been poached and I remember Tyler Robinson being talked about during the Victory Shield and had generally read good things on him plus Leko and I think Abdi. I didn't really put the link together. It is amazing they impact of a good academy as it's true they would not be able to buy better strikers than they are currently producing. It is sad they get poached, though I thought Aston Villa would be the dominant team in their catchment. Their academy has been generally good with Grealish, RHM and of course Crowley more recently. I knew Brentford and Swindon were doing well but surprised to hear about so many other lower league clubs.

The agent thing is interesting. Hope teams like WBA are protected so they can begin to see the fruits of their labour. Liverpool are criminal poachers I think though they do have a few talents themselves.

I know you lot are all cock a hoop about Bentaleb, Mason and Rose, but I feel KWP, Edwards, Onomah, Kirby, TOB, and maybe Alli, are going to make a far bigger impact than the aforementioned group.

Can't blame us for being proud and supporting any young players that come through the system though I agree the next coming through look better.

Good post again

EDIT: One more thing I just thought about. When Oduwa left us for a season (I believe for family reasons may just be rumour) and went to WBA, at the time it seemed like a random club, but I wonder if it was Spurs that suggested he go there to continue his development as they were aware of WBAs excellent system.

 

[yankspurs]

Akindayini, Azzaoui, Miller, and Ogilvie trained with the first team(the ones not on int'l duty) today.

Pictured on the OS.

 

[KingSRV]

I see Les Reed has come out in the Times today against the new agent rules taking particular exception to the part I was most doubtful of, but didn't mention in my post, which is the aspect of unlicensed agents, and if they're unlicensed how do you punish them for wrongdoing if there is no license to revoke? A question I'll get too soon. However I'm equally doubtful of Reed's statement every man and his dog will want to become an agent as, whatever amount of amorality is required to do the job, it is an area where a lot of specialist skills are involved, and I can't believe a parent would just sign up with someone with no agency, reputation, or prior involvement in the business, as an apprenticeship, knowledge, and contacts are required.

If anyone wants to comb through the technicalities of the new rules they're here http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/more/agents/intermediaries-update

An interesting thing which hasn't been mentioned is that while agents are no longer licensed and anyone can register themselves as an agent for a small fee having passed the old test of good character and reputation, now, with every transaction on which they perform a role as an intermediary, they have to prove they still pass the good character test. In the past the test was rendered ineffectual by agents passing as part of their licensing and then behaving how they pleased. I suspect it's this part both agents and clubs object to because it sounds like an unholy amount of paperwork for the clubs and agents, a near impossible amount of oversight from the FA, and a many splendored set of complications that might ensue. Both Reed and the agents call the rules unworkable and since the rules will come in on April the 1st (appropriately) the upcoming summer transfer window should give us an idea of how it effects the senior game, while the trickle down to the junior one may take two or three years to become fully evident.

Knowing the agent's antipathy towards the rules I expect a lot of underhand attempts to deliberately make them unworkable and it may be in some clubs interests to aid them. Since I'm not a Times subscriber I only saw the first para of that Les Reed article so I don't know if he made any mention on the ban on fees for representing U18's, which is a shame as I'd liked to have seen his comments on how he thought that would effect Southampton, particularly at the lower schoolboy age groups. They also have the case now where U16 England midfielder Callum Slattery is being courted by Bayern Munich and Arsenal, both who have been after him for the past two years. In this case his agents could feasibly make more money by him going to Bayern, but considering he's already in the best system for promoting youth players in England I expect him to stay before transferring to one of the big four as a senior player.

Edit: I forgot to mention that to work with minors, agents now have to gain a special authorisation from the FA which further indicates the purpose of these new rules. I think the intention is that this should comprehensively stop Reed's worry of any old man turning up representing youngsters, something he should know, which, again with the agents, makes me think they're not being completely honest about what their true fears are with the new rules.

 

[IGSpur]

Onomah, KWP and Amos all start on bench for u18s today

 

[Blake Griffin]

Onomah, KWP and Amos all start on bench for u18s today

if only we could

england's twitter page.

 

[Blake Griffin]

England @england · 5 mins 5 minutes ago
England U19s: 1 Gunn, 2 Smith-Brown, 3 Chilwell, 4 Winks, 5 Galloway, 6 Gomez, 7 Roberts, 8 Loftus-Cheek, 9 Brown (C), 10 Colkett, 11 Gray.


hurrah!

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

England @england · 2m2 minutes ago
65 - Double change for England U18s as @Joshuaonomah10 and @tammyabraham replace @sheyi_ojo and @DomSolanke. 1-0

 

[loaderspurs]

Confirmation by club Lameiras has been transferred to Advidabergs (or something like that) in sweden.

 

[Spursidol]

Confirmation by club Lameiras has been transferred to Advidabergs (or something like that) in sweden.

Expected, but a shame none the less. Certainly technically very good, but think not consistent enough. Best of luck to the lad
http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/ruben-lameiras-move-260315

 

[Bofbro]

Expected, but a shame none the less. Certainly technically very good, but think not consistent enough. Best of luck to the lad
http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/ruben-lameiras-move-260315

Good luck to the kid.

 

[shelfboy68]

For those who think my writing best left alone, I've got some really important information in here around the Daily Mail links that you should go straight to and then read my analysis (and then, of course, read the rest of this post as it does all link in).

I'll start by saying I'm not hugely concerned with Dyke's new proposals as you can't force clubs to do what you want over a shotgun barrel when there's one of you and twenty of them flying a formation of apache attack helicopters all locked onto you, and the FA know this. I'm so fed up of debating the issue of quotas over the years that I've completely given up the subject.

If the FA want PL clubs to play youth players they have to convince them it's in their own best interests and the only way that will be proven and clubs who don't have cohesive youth strategies will accept it is when they begin to fall behind clubs who are promoting their youngsters (i.e. Pochettino's Tottenham - hopefully. I know you lot are all cock a hoop about Bentaleb, Mason and Rose, but I feel KWP, Edwards, Onomah, Kirby, TOB, and maybe Alli, are going to make a far bigger impact than the aforementioned group. Somewhat nearer Kane, but as a collective, rather than individually and over a much longer timescale).

Such is the quality of modern elite youth players (a fair number of whom are not contracted to "elite" clubs) I think the mid-table PL clubs that don't produce their own youth players will find themselves struggling by 2025 under the weight of clubs such as MK Dons, WBA (more on these two soon), Brentford, Charlton, Swindon, Bournemouth, Ipswich, Derby, and the lower league clubs who have developed ten year plans whose range far exceeds the usual midtable PL club mentality of surviving until next season by signing as many players who might be good for as much money as possible in the hope that a players ability will increase depending upon how much they pay for him. Strange to say that there are some very progressive clubs beyond the PL (admittedly surrounded by far more stupidly ran ones).

One of the issues I cut out for reasons of brevity from my original overview of English youth football was the progress of smaller clubs which has gone largely unnoticed. I was drawn to this with some alarm by a statement from the usually well informed @IGSpur upon the WBA academy. (Hi there IG, I thought I'd use this point to say that: if being handsome were a crime, I'd be a decorated high ranking police officer involved in the successful implementation of that law). That particular Izzy Brown comment (which I'm too lazy to find and quote) said that the flaws in his technique owed to a deficient education at WBA. Without debating that I'd like to take two examples of progressive English clubs in WBA and MK Dons who have both recently produced first team players in Saido Berahino and Dele Alli, with a particular focus on WBA.

It may seem strange to many but in my mind WBA and MK Dons are the two most similar clubs in England in regards to how they are run. For their budgets they are the biggest overachievers at youth level because they are the most innovative (MK Dons' large catchment zone helps). They also have the most players pinched from them, the highest profile of which are Jerome Sinclair (LFC), Izzy Brown (CFC), and Yan Dhanda (LFC) while MK Don's have recently lost Sheyi Ojo (LFC), Danny Collinge (VFB Stuttgart), Kevin Danso (Augsburg) and Brendan Galloway went to Everton for a cut price £4 million as he refused to sign a new contract as a eighteen year old. All those listed are youth internationals and as a by-point it's worth noting the worst scavenger is Liverpool who are desperately trying to make up for being ten years behind clubs like WBA in development of boys from 8-16 through signing the best domestic and international youth players available at the ages of 14-16. What is most impressive though for WBA and MK Dons, is that after the vultures pass on they still have a number of talents who've spurned advances to stay with them. WBA have the best two U16 strikers in the country in Wales U17 international Tyler Roberts (regularly playing U21 football like Izzy Brown in an attempt to make him again refuse offers, this time of an extremely lucrative scholarship. I hear the WBA staff are mentioning the name Izzy Brown as often as possible as a warning of the pitfalls of leaving) and England U16 Jon Leko who played U18 football while an U15. It's not just the players, they have a number of the best young coaches around, one of the best lead recruiters in the impressive Steve Hopcroft, and a further set of interesting schemes such as shadow development team WBA Colts who play in the Jnr Prem League (the highest standard of youth football outside the EPPP system who have a sizeable percentage of players signed by tier 1 and 2 academy's, particularly useful for late developers) they are also the most pro-active in recruiting boys born late in the school year. They regularly reach the semi finals of Premier league tournaments from U12-16 (and regularly lose to Chelsea, who Hopcroft says are their nemesis at schoolboy level). Their educational attainment is exceptional as is their link up with the first team, the only thing keeping them from joining the big four (at schoolboy level they unarguably are one of the big four) is their limited funding. It wasn't a coincidence that the man the FA so wanted to recruit to be their director of elite development was the exceptional Dan Ashworth who had gone from being WBA's youth team manager to technical director and set up the current WBA academy system.

Despite clubs such as WBA managing to hold onto some, rather than all of their riches, I think the big thing in relation to the quota is that too many boys are still moving from these academies to clubs like Liverpool, where they run into bottlenecks even with the excellent Brendan Rodgers. That clubs such as WBA still have a strong line of production is a credit to their systems, and a blemish against the FA that they haven't yet found a solution to protect their work, which offers the greatest chance of properly allowing youngsters to fulfil their potential and consequently provide the best possible national team. Something that would be a lot easier if the players and their families didn't have agents convincing them they could do better elsewhere (when often they can't, but the agent knows he can do better in pocket, right now, before moving onto the next young player.)

However what might solve this problem is not a quota but another tiny story tucked away in the Daily Mail of far more significance http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ered-FA-new-regulations-governing-agents.html
That was fed to Charlie Sale by his agent mates who are angling against the FA's new proposed agent rules, designed to stop them deliberately manoeuvring transfers from clubs like WBA to Liverpool and taking a massive slice for themselves. He also produced an article two weeks before on the agents taking an injunction against the new rules which I haven't heard anything more about.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2977961/Football-agents-set-legal-fight-introduction-new-unacceptable-FA-rules.html
I have a suspicion that the difference in tone between the article on the 20th of March and the optimistic aggression of that on the 3rd is that Lord Pannick has advised the AFA they have no legal grounds to precede as the rules are under the FA's jurisdiction who are quite within their rights to protect minors. (As an aside, oh how I do love Lord Pannick's name, and it's so appropriate for the agents who are shitting themselves at the prospect of no longer being able to leach off teenagers, which shows just how much their livelihood's depend on manufacturing these moves that often harm the player, the club they are leaving, and English football)

If these rules in regards to not profiting from representing U18's (they can still represent them, but not for profit, so suddenly it becomes to the agent's advantage to plan for the long game, rather than the short cut and run) do come into force and presuming the FA actually have some way of administering them and clubs don't easily find other ways of renumerating agents, and the fuss the agents are making means they fear the FA can enforce them, at least partially, then it will become much harder to engineer moves for clubs such as Liverpool who work through agents and aren't allowed to approach parents. Theoretically Izzy Brown could go and say to Chelsea, I want to sign for you, and that's still allowed, but the agent would know he wasn't going to profit at all, and would get rich a lot of quicker if Brown stayed at WBA and went into the WBA first team at eighteen, before a prospective transfer to Chelsea, rather than hanging about wasting time in Chelsea's youth teams. Make no mistake about it, these new agents rules are the FA's steel hand inside the quota's velvet glove being presented to the public. (As another aside, getting rid of the agents license is the FA's recognition of the fact they've spent the last twenty years licensing the most unscrupulous characters, and a free for all, is much better than the convicts for fraud only admittance policy they've got at the moment. Another thing is when Sale repeatedly blames FIFA for washing their hands of the matter, it's actually that FIFA says the independent FA's are responsible for governing their own agents and it's not their business to interfere (thank goodness). The agents went to FIFA asking them to argue their side against the FA's new agent licensing rules and were told to fuck off, so at least FIFA did something right for once, even if it was holding to their policy of doing nothing, which, when it comes to FIFA, is much better than all their policies that involve doing something.)

I'm certain this is being used to close a loophole in the EPPP regulations which is why most people so object to EPPP – the ease of U18 players moving from club to club which was intended to make sure the most talented boys in academy tiers 2-3 could move up to tier 1, assuring the best talents received the best coaching. The idealistic notion however was that boys at tier 1 clubs such as WBA wouldn't want to leave as they would see the opportunities before them and understand how good was the coaching they were receiving, what they didn't plan for was that where the clubs might only receive nominal fees the agents suddenly had all the power because they could still demand as much as they wanted, indeed far more because so little of the total fee the clubs could donate to the transfers was going to the receiving club. The hope is these rules will make agent power no more in U18 football, to the agents EPPP was the goose that laid the golden egg as they suddenly became the main brokers in these deals and getting boys from WBA to Liverpool prestige wise is a very easy sell.

The other thing is that apart from the top six PL clubs you can bet the rest of the PL and the FL support these new agent rules. There are a lot of other implications, such as top clubs will have to focus on 8-14 development rather than just creaming off the top, they will actually have to go make their own. It will become far harder to sign foreign boys (not impossible as the clubs will promise the agents massive fees when the boys turn 18) but it will be harder and suddenly developing internally produced players becomes far more attractive.

And to finish these points, I have a sense somebody is suppressing this story but I'm not quite sure who. Is it just that the media, without a proper knowledge of youth football, doesn't realise the ramifications of the changes, or that they think it won't sell newspapers, or are the AFA scared of having the story brought out and the truth about their habitual skull duggery exposed, and if, as the agents suggest, this will impact the clubs buying policies, why are the clubs saying absolutely nothing about it? Obviously the FA wants it to be done as quietly as possible, so maybe it suits all parties for it not to be publicised. The quota to me seems to be camouflage that will likely be shot up by the Premier league clubs while the agent rules are silently brought into place, or maybe they've been persuaded by the FA there needs to be change. Certainly the clubs have no love for agents, seeing them as a necessary evil. One thing I would say is I would like to know who has their fingerprints on this, I'd been hearing talks at the matches for the last three months about big meetings going on at the FA and certain youth development officials at the FA have been very excited, with suggestions of hugely positive meetings that they wouldn't let on about but hinted would effect major change. Personally I think this is likely Ashworth's doing with his knowledge of the problems clubs such as WBA face, backed up by Dyke. I hope it achieves its intended goal, I'm sure Ashworth and his team will have considered the way clubs and agents will try to get around it, I just hope they have a way of enforcing it.

Now to link all this up to my original argument, imagine a WBA strike force of Saido Berahino, Izzy Brown, Jerome Sinclair, Jon Leko, Tyler Roberts with Dhanda on the wing, all right maybe you can't if you haven't seen them, but I can promise you the two U16 boys have a good chance of being exceptional strikers. (Although I don't like discussing quotas that strikeforce is a different world to any foreign players that WBA could afford to buy and, excepting Berahino, between Sinclair the oldest of the remaining players and Roberts the youngest, the difference in age is two years and five months, which is a remarkable set of produce for such a small age range). On the quality of the players, Brendan Rogers is a massive fan of Sinclair's talent as am I. At 15, when he left WBA, he was by far and away the best striker the modern youth system has produced, he's spent the last two years injured and without developing much he is still really good, on loan now to Wigan, while he made his Liverpool debut when still a schoolboy before those injuries hit. There are a lot of impressive youngsters in that WBA system (strikers are their forte) and imagine how much they could have got for all those who'd left if they'd managed to keep them up to first team level and then sold them. It could, theoretically, shift the balance of power in the English game where these exceptional academies earn the reward they deserve, and WBA are a single case, they're a lot of other clubs this could effect, and might make fortunes, transforming their position in the game which would depend not on how much money they currently have, but how well they plan, despite the massive new TV deal. (And many of the current PL clubs would fall, as they coast inefficiently on because they have so much money – the real reason for the current weakness of the PL game in contrast to La Liga - a luxury not afforded to the lower league clubs I earlier listed who cannot support inefficiency). I really don't think I'm overstating the impact this could potentially have, and as I must repeat, it all turns on how well the FA can enforce their rules, but the prospect if they can is a major change to the English footballing map. I know that of course greedy parents, will assume the role of some agents, but that's always going to happen, yet I also know from experience there are many responsible parents around, some of whom are persuaded by agents their children are missing the provisions of other clubs and in cases such as Chelsea you can say the coaching is the best there is, the facilities top class and so on, but the difference between excellent coaching and the best is minimal when there are no opportunities at the end of it.

There are a lot of other things to discuss in this, but I think that is enough for now.

Very informative post and your a welcome addition to this forum just sorry about the retard who gave you a doh rating.

 

[Blake Griffin]

edwards starts for the u17s. sterling not involved at all, not sure why.

 

[IGSpur]

Also don't know if anyone read this interview with John Moncur and how we accidentally released Harry. However the interesting bit was that he said, while he was there, that Kane and Pritchard were in the same age group at Spurs which obviously implies he was with us before West Ham.

I wonder how long he was with us before he left. Even wiki doesn't have a start date at West Ham they usually do for most players. I know it doesn't mean a lot but it does feel strangely more satisfying knowing he started with us. Him and Oduwa seem to have had similar paths

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/tottenham-axed-harry-kane-age-5392530

 

[IGSpur]

Winks has been sent off for two yellows

 

[TottenhamLegend]

Players selected for the England youth squads (U16 - U21) by club:

Shame they didn't include the senior team as our segment would grow even more!

 

[DaSpurs]

What in the flying fuck, they made us red. Clearly designed by a mad goon.

 

[mark87]

Players selected for the England youth squads (U16 - U21) by club:

Shame they didn't include the senior team as our segment would grow even more!

Liverpool's is shocking.

 

[DaSpurs]

Liverpool's is shocking.

Wow, Man United too. Dead even with a German side's academy.