The Spurs Youth Thread - 2017/2018

[coys200]

we're 3-0 down.

obviously losing on purpose for the sake of development though

edit: 4-0 now spurs twitter going to take a mauling when they tweet the score.

Not tweeted a thing yet

 

[Blake Griffin]

not sure where edwards is.

 

[mark87]

not sure where edwards is.

With the first team?

 

[IGSpur]

So wrong that Arsenal will not let people in to watch these matches,I have seriously looked at buying a Drone just so I can watch the match

Probably done you a favour here haha.

For those who will no doubt see this result and ask what is happening. Please take into account this Arsenal year group have had the most (8) call ups to the 01 age group whereas we've has only 2 regulars and one isn't playing. The most we've ever had called up in one age group in same season without researching is 4 possibly 5. They're a very good side.

One of our CBs is an u16 and one has hardly played.

 

[Blake Griffin]

With the first team?

highly unlikely. poch did speak about needing a tricky 1v1 dribbler to break down teams like west brom but i think that was in reference to lamela coming back, he's probably just picked up a knock or something.

 

[Blake Griffin]

u23s 2-0 up

harrison and sterling

 

[chinaman]

Who we're playing?

 

[Hengy1]

Who we're playing?

Man City I think

 

[chinaman]

Man City I think

Thanks.

 

[WindyCOYS]

https://twitter.com/ManCityAcademy/status/934412284637646850

https://twitter.com/ManCityAcademy/status/934413478277910528

https://twitter.com/ManCityAcademy/status/934415566781247488

 

[IGSpur]

the nike cup is back this year and starts next wednesday. same teams as usual - england, usa, netherlands, brazil.

presumably madueke will be going. not sure if we'll have anyone else in the squad, walcott maybe.

Walcott playing today and Madeuke is with u16s. England squad is in USA now so annoyingly looks like no call ups. Like to watch these games.

Always a chance Madeuke could go if they wanted him for NLD hit unlikely.

Only other pIayers might expect to be called up are Cirkin or Darcy. No nothing about Darcy but he's been called up in past. Cirkin is talented but not sure if hed go. Pedder has also been Yi camps but he's been injured for a while.

Ben Knight is going if anyone remembers him

 

[WindyCOYS]

2-2

https://twitter.com/ManCityAcademy/status/934424205713707014

 

[coys200]

Lost 4-2 spursy day today alright.

Edwards injured or just rested?

Honestly I’m now pretty desperate to see him on the bench. Today was perfect game to come on last 15 and do something special. Very frustrating now.

 

[Blake Griffin]

Lost 4-2 spursy day today alright.

Edwards injured or just rested?

Honestly I’m now pretty desperate to see him on the bench. Today was perfect game to come on last 15 and do something special. Very frustrating now.

don't know, guess we'll find out next week when we play barnet in the checkatrade trophy or whatever it's called. i don't know why he'd be rested to be fair as he only did 70 minutes on tuesday. as much as i think he'd be an asset in games like today i just don't see it happening, poch is a stubborn old goat. i'm at the point where i'd like to see him go out on loan now as i think parts of his game are beginning to stagnate.

 

[Blake Griffin]

Walcott playing today and Madeuke is with u16s. England squad is in USA now so annoyingly looks like no call ups. Like to watch these games.

Always a chance Madeuke could go if they wanted him for NLD hit unlikely.

Only other pIayers might expect to be called up are Cirkin or Darcy. No nothing about Darcy but he's been called up in past. Cirkin is talented but not sure if hed go. Pedder has also been Yi camps but he's been injured for a while.

Ben Knight is going if anyone remembers him

a bit scared to ask this given how the u18s game went but i don't suppose you know how they(the u16s) got on?

also find it very strange if madueke isn't going, he typically always starts for england and looked like one of their best players to me. oh and ben knight is quality yeah, shame we couldn't nab him when ipswich lent him to us.

 

[IGSpur]

a bit scared to ask this given how the u18s game went but i don't suppose you know how they(the u16s) got on?

also find it very strange if madueke isn't going, he typically always starts for england and looked like one of their best players to me. oh and ben knight is quality yeah, shame we couldn't nab him when ipswich lent him to us.

Don't know the score but I think we lost. Kurylowicz posted that it was a poor result.

And agree, Madeuke is a regular and one of their best players. Shame as it is one of the few chances we get to look at some of our u16s players on a stream

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Finally finished watching the YCL game. Funny old game really. I thought neither side actually produced much intensity. We started brightly, scored a couple of good goals, and seemed to go into a sort of good trundle mode. Dortmund were very disappointing, bit like the first team really, showing very little initiative or clear coached ethos. Maybe the constant loss of their youth and reserve coaches is having it's toll, we've seen similar things at Spurs over the last few years.

Hard to pick out any real stand out performers for us. Several players put in decent performances. Shashoua continues to impress, and was probably the most creatively influential player on a pitch that included Edwards and the now Demi god status Sancho. This game did little to prove the theory mooted by some a few pages ago that Sancho was on a different plane to Edwards. I thought Edwards despite not having his best of games, was still more influential on this game particularly first half - for us than Sancho was for Dortmund.

Marsh and Skipp were good in midfield. And I have to say that a player who did come out with some credit was a Player who's never really blown me away, and that's Sterling. He was industrious, scored a very good goal, and his movement was good. I still think he's got imitations and the type of striker he is will never be my favourite type of striker, even in their best guise, but he had a good game and his technique seems to have improved a bit, and I forget that he's still young enough to play U19 football.

First look at Paris (?) Maghoma. he was mostly just pretty OK, but did play a lovely ball for Sterling right at the death, which I thought should have resulted in a penalty.

And Roles, despite not looking the tricksiest or quickest, always looks like a player that makes something happen.

Eyoma continues to look a bit ordinary as a RB.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Well said, I think we should look to give those who've done well in the UYL an opportunity to play against APOEL if it's feasible.

Just read this article about Chris Ramsey and how we (Spurs) put performance over result.

http://www.espnfc.com/blog/espn-fc-...s-park-rangers-tottenham-including-harry-kane

" Chris Ramsey points at the cracked screen of his touch-pad where two pyramids represent the priorities of the first team and the development team. The first team's pyramid is pointed side down. At the bottom, the least important aspect of the first team is the individual. In the middle is the team performance and at the top, the widest segment of all, is the result. The development pyramid is inverted. Here the result is the least important aspect, then the team performance and then, broadest of all, is the individual. And on this notion rests the crux of Ramsey's philosophy.

Now Technical Director at Queens Park Rangers, Ramsey arrived at Tottenham in 2005, working under John McDermott on a newly inaugurated 12-year plan of technique-focused youth development. That plan has now reached completion in spectacular style: Harry Kane is one of Europe's hottest strikers, Danny Rose has become one of the nation's finest left-backs and Harry Winks has broken into the England side alongside former Spurs youngster Jake Livermore. A host of fresh names await in the wings: Kyle Walker-Peters, Josh Onomah, Cameron Carter-Vickers and perhaps the jewel in the crown, the exciting Marcus Edwards.

Ramsey was there almost every step of the way, rising up with the players from the academy and eventually working as the assistant manager under Tim Sherwood as Kane broke into the first team. But it hasn't always been easy. For Ramsey, as the pyramids demonstrate, the development of the individual comes first. Not the result.

"When you're in the first team, you have to win," Ramsey tells ESPN FC. "If you play terribly and still win, people will forgive you. But in development, the performance is for the player; the result is for the coach. If I want to win more than I want those players to develop, sure, we might win the youth league. But eventually, those players won't make the grade."

Clubs and supporters take great pride in the results of their youth teams, citing their trophy hauls as evidence of their club's wisdom and far-sightedness. But Ramsey believes that emphasis is misplaced. He mentions with pride one youth tournament in which Spurs performed well but finished seventh. Barcelona, who operate with similar emphasis, finished eighth.

"You get these young coaches and they think 'I want to be [Jose] Mourinho, I want to be [Antonio] Conte' but are those managers the best role models for developers? No, because their parameters are different to our parameters. They're trying to win the game, they're not trying to develop players. They don't care about that."

"When I go and coach the Under-11s and we lose, their coach might think 'Oh, that Chris Ramsey's no good, we beat them 5-0.' But we're focused on developing. I might be telling my players just to express themselves.

"We do a thing where we manipulate things so if the game is getting too easy, we change it so they can only play on their wooden side. Or we'll take somebody off. Simulate a red card or take somebody off as if they are injured. Or play two at the back, I see youth teams now putting on players in the 88th minute -- what's that about? Their coach might be saying, 'We've beaten him!' But what I'm saying is, you've not beaten me. You've not helped your players."

At the end of the 2004-05 season, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy brought in coach John McDermott and tasked him with revitalising the youth development programme. McDermott brought in Ramsey and they laid out the plan. Ramsey repeatedly stresses that Spurs' success on this front is a group effort brought about by the efforts of many people, including Perry Suckling who transformed the way the goalkeepers play, Richard Allen who excelled in recruitment, as well as Tim Sherwood and Les Ferdinand, who oversaw the final stages of development.

The focus was firmly upon technique. Young players were recruited or retained for their technical ability, not physical attributes, and up until the age of 10, technique was the primary focus. Progression was partly dictated by a strength based capability assessment, meaning that smaller players might be held back, but generally it wasn't until the age of 11 when the players moved around the pitch to assess their positional strengths. At 14, players with as many as six years of technical focus, start to find their place, but it's not until 15 and 16 that bespoke programmes for specific positions are laid down.

"Because you've got technique, you can be moved around," says Ramsey. "We teach the principles of defensive and attacking play, but we work mainly on attacking."

But it was Ramsey's approach to matches that caused the most consternation. Defensive tactics were considered counter-productive. If an opposing team, for example, had a devastating left-winger, Ramsey would pointedly not protect the right-back by bringing in support from another player to double-man the threat. He wanted his right-back to be exposed. He wanted his right-back to evolve.

"We picked systems to allow the players maximum one vs. ones all over the pitch. The way we played, there was no hiding place. You always get the ball. You are always working. So we're not putting holding midfielders in. We're just letting their forward get the ball so that our defender has to defend. So when you do work on tactics when you're older, it's easier because you've been brought up having to cope without them."

Not everyone understood. Parents, appalled that their offspring weren't winning trophies, complained. But so did other people within the club including, on occasion, unnamed first-team managers. Fortunately, Levy resisted the urge to make changes, which was always Ramsey's biggest fear.

"That's the problem. People stop halfway through something like this and then start again. But what do you want? Do you want to develop players or do you want to win matches? I'm not saying it's all right to lose. I'm not saying that at all. All players want to win. You pick two teams from a primary school and they'll all want to win. I'm saying that the priority is to develop."

Ramsey reaches for the touch pad again and pulls up the team sheet for a youth game between Brentford and Arsenal in 2005. Arsenal lost the game on penalties and the result caused a stir in the development community. But only a handful of Brentford's players went on to play lower or non-league football; the majority never made the grade and slipped out of the game. By contrast, Arsenal's team that day featured the likes of Alex Song, Fabrice Muamba, Nicklas Bendtner and Henri Lansbury.

"Who won the game?" asks Ramsey. "Twelve years on, who cares?"

I wanted to go back to this because I think it was a fascinating insight, even it did just confirm and elaborate on stuff we'd heard and read in various other places from various other members of the academy staff, particularly John Mcdermott.

I agree with much of this ethos, but I can't help feeling that part of learning, improving and developing is about tactical awareness and how that related to the group dynamic.

I know it's an over simplification and obvious thing to say, but it's no good just concentrating on pure individual development, that individual has to develop individual aspects of his game in tandem with developing his tactical awareness and how his individual abilities complement the group dynamic.

I'm not saying this doesn't happen, I'm sure it does, but some of our teams seem to definitely do seem to lack a bit of tactical awareness at various times.

As much as we absolved Ehiogu a lot of the U23 peculiarities of selection etc, what was lacking throughout was a clear ethos or approach tactically. I know this must be easier when working with more fixed age groups where groups play together more frequently, but I remember really loving watching the way Inglethorpe's teams always played, with an intensity and unity of purpose. I'd like to see that regardless of the individual development ethos, wherever possible.

I think this is an area where English coaching is still lacking compared to it's continental rivals. In this respect Chelsea's academy impresses me the most of the English academies (that I have seen anything of, which admittedly isn't many). Their teams have talented players, but they all seem to play a cohesive and intense brand of football too.

 

[Westmorland]

Don't know the score but I think we lost. Kurylowicz posted that it was a poor result.

And agree, Madeuke is a regular and one of their best players. Shame as it is one of the few chances we get to look at some of our u16s players on a stream

Six

 

[IGSpur]

Six

?