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The Spurs Youth Thread - 2018/19

loaderspurs

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May 21, 2012
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Also worth noting Youth has pulled out of tour due to knee injury so may see CCV get more game time.
 

Spurzinho

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Jan 24, 2016
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Didn't he play striker in his previous club, believe it was said when we chased his signature?

No. At Ebbsfleet he was a box-to-box midfielder. What got him noticed was his pace and powerful running, his directness and his strength and power. He looked a real specimen at that level (bare in mind he didn't break into Ebbsfleets first team, but he was bossing it in their youth system). He ticked the same boxes as Sissoko: strong, powerful, quick and able to keep up with the forwards when he hit a lightening quick counter. What he also shares with Sissoko is poor footballing intelligence and poor technique.
 

ChristianBaler

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Aug 13, 2010
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Don’t understand why people think Griffiths would be on the tour. He’s had a good season but still very raw and didn’t light up the world in the few appearances he made for the 23’s. Parrott is better imo and I’m sure others would agree.

Yeah I agree on Parrott, but given the other youngsters who were taken on tour you'd think after a season that Griffiths just had that he would be rewarded for that.

It's a moot point though as it looks like he's left the club
 

Frasier

New Member
Mar 18, 2018
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Yeah I agree on Parrott, but given the other youngsters who were taken on tour you'd think after a season that Griffiths just had that he would be rewarded for that.

It's a moot point though as it looks like he's left the club
Does he deserve to when he didn’t sign a pro? I couldn’t see him making it here anyway regardless. personally just bothered about eyoma tanganga BLF skipp TOB markanday and parrott
 

JRSG

Active Member
Mar 25, 2015
70
117
Is Onomah in a similar situation to Winks, where he's putting off a surgery and just prolonging the inevitable?
 

Paolo10

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Apr 6, 2004
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Do some of you honestly expect a player to go away on a 1st team tour after scoring a lot of goals at Under-18?! Under-18 football is as far away from the 1st team as Under-23 standard is to league football.

Nowadays YouTube and the internet means everyone under the fucking sun knows the names of talented kids at 14/15/16 that you'd have never heard about unless you watched or were involved in youth football...I don't think this helps young players today as the pressure and hype is amplified. Marcus Edwards is a great example.

If you want to know why certain players are involved or not, ask yourself a few questions, have they been out on loan at a competitive standard (successfully), have they played for the Under-23's or been close to a 1st team squad, have they toured before, are we light in any areas on the tour etc.?

The only one that stands out to me in that squad is Skipp, and that's because I know he's young (2nd year), but a quick look tells me he's played a lot for the Under-23/PL2 side at 16/17...you don't do that without having the tools.

There's no way anyone without many minutes above Under-18 level should be anywhere near the 1st team...and rightly so IMO.

Reasons why players don't break through is fucking massive, but the biggest one is the strength of our squad. 1st team football is light years from any other squad at the club...including this tour as it happens.
 

Blake Griffin

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Oct 3, 2011
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Do some of you honestly expect a player to go away on a 1st team tour after scoring a lot of goals at Under-18?! Under-18 football is as far away from the 1st team as Under-23 standard is to league football.

Nowadays YouTube and the internet means everyone under the fucking sun knows the names of talented kids at 14/15/16 that you'd have never heard about unless you watched or were involved in youth football...I don't think this helps young players today as the pressure and hype is amplified. Marcus Edwards is a great example.

If you want to know why certain players are involved or not, ask yourself a few questions, have they been out on loan at a competitive standard (successfully), have they played for the Under-23's or been close to a 1st team squad, have they toured before, are we light in any areas on the tour etc.?

The only one that stands out to me in that squad is Skipp, and that's because I know he's young (2nd year), but a quick look tells me he's played a lot for the Under-23/PL2 side at 16/17...you don't do that without having the tools.

There's no way anyone without many minutes above Under-18 level should be anywhere near the 1st team...and rightly so IMO.

Reasons why players don't break through is fucking massive, but the biggest one is the strength of our squad. 1st team football is light years from any other squad at the club...including this tour as it happens.

edwards, tob and dinzeyi off the top of my head have gone on tour without playing much, if any, u23 football prior so it's hardly unprecedented. i'm not exactly aghast that griffiths hasn't gone but i don't think it's crazy to suggest he could or perhaps should have given our lack of strikers.
 

Paolo10

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Apr 6, 2004
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edwards, tob and dinzeyi off the top of my head have gone on tour without playing much, if any, u23 football prior so it's hardly unprecedented. i'm not exactly aghast that griffiths hasn't gone but i don't think it's crazy to suggest he could or perhaps should have given our lack of strikers.

And only TOB is back on tour from those mentioned, I'd guess there are good reasons why.

Can't you also see how giving a hyped youngster a 1st team crack might not be for the best at this point?

I take your point about forwards, but is there any chance of Reo pushing Harry this year? Fuck no.

In fact has he even trained much with the seniors?
 

Blake Griffin

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Oct 3, 2011
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And only TOB is back on tour from those mentioned, I'd guess there are good reasons why.

Can't you also see how giving a hyped youngster a 1st team crack might not be for the best at this point?

I take your point about forwards, but is there any chance of Reo pushing Harry this year? Fuck no.

In fact has he even trained much with the seniors?

well he has about as much chance of pushing kane for his place as sterling does, i.e. - zero. do you think we've taken marsh and eyoma(neither of which have trained much with the first team) on tour with a view to them displacing dier and sanchez?

i don't see the issue with rewarding reo for the season he's just had and if you're not going to incentivise these players then you can't be surprised when they become discouraged and leave, as is now happening with more and more regularity. i don't know if pochettino rates him or not but i suspect the main reason he's not going is down to him not committing his future to the club, not because he's only been playing u18s. he's probably not too keen on reo's personality either as he's not exactly the quiet fall-in-line type that poch likes.
 

Paolo10

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Apr 6, 2004
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Marsh has 21 appearances at Under-23/PL2 and played twice in the Carabou Cup, Eyoma has played a comparable number of minutes at the same level.

Reo has 6 PL2 appearances, one in the Carabou and 0 goals at that level.
 

JRSG

Active Member
Mar 25, 2015
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117
Maghoma played more U23 minutes than anyone else. He's been released.

Don't read too much into U23 appearances. It's usually not a good sign if you're playing regularly at that level and you're older than 18 at the start of the season.

One of the reasons Griffiths wants to leave is because of the lack of gametime he's seen at the U23 level. All his peers are playing at that level at different clubs. Unfortunately, Spurs consistently keep players for too long and it causes a backlog in the U23s.

I wonder where he'll end up, there's a fair few relatively highly rated English youngsters heading into August without a club.
 

IGSpur

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Jan 11, 2013
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Marsh has 21 appearances at Under-23/PL2 and played twice in the Carabou Cup, Eyoma has played a comparable number of minutes at the same level.

Reo has 6 PL2 appearances, one in the Carabou and 0 goals at that level.

Marsh has also played u23 because he can't play any other type of football. As BG said I don't rate Griffiths that highly and not bothered he's not on the tour but he 'deserves' based on appearances and performances to be there over Marsh regardless of where they played.

Maybe taking them might inflate their ego but in the context of players leaving you either show them there's an incentive or risk losing them.

At the end of the day if none are used anyway it doesn't matter what happens really
 

Paolo10

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Apr 6, 2004
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By any chance are all of the lads who have been selected for the tour highly professional, punctual, respectful etc.?

Could it be argued that their inclusion has been a reward for their attitude and maybe something to try and use to motivate players with different characters/lower standards etc.? At the end of the day we're not the only club having this issue at youth level. Kids want to play football, we're still finding and producing talented players with futures...they just need to be something spectacularly talented and have the right kind of attitude to make an impact to one of the best teams in the world right now.

Financially the club are protected with development fees etc, tribunals in certain cases...so is it really that big of a problem? Who is being hard done by at the moment by not being near the 1st team squad realistically and whose place do they take?

I mean surely there's no way Citeh can keep some of those ridiculously talented kids happy a la Sancho?
 

Luka Van der Bale

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Jan 29, 2011
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yeah, had ankle surgery in May. Had basically been putting it off all season because he wanted to break through to the first team, then wanted to stay in the team, then wanted to make the WC.
Yes I know. So how would that be similar to Onomah, who hasn’t had surgery yet?

Edit: never mind, I get you now. Your first post read as if they were in similar positions now, not that Onomah was now in the position Winks had been in last season.
 
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