Use of young players

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Little piece from Sky Sports reveals how Spurs are leading the way with young players:

Young players get less game time in the Premier League than in any of Europe’s other leading leagues, a new study has found.

Footballers under 21 years of age played just 5.3 per cent of total minutes in the 2014/15 Premier League.

In contrast, under-21s played in 12.1 per cent of total minutes in France’s Ligue 1.

Bucking the trend are Liverpool and Tottenham, whose young players featured in 19.8 and 18.9 per cent of their total minutes this season, respectively.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/...e-than-la-liga-bundesliga-ligue-1-and-serie-a



Now, you might be thinking "well sure, we've got a young team!", but Mason doesn't count (as he's 23), as are Lamela, Eriksen and Townsend. Here's a rough idea of the ages in the team...

GK: Lloris (28); Vorm (31)
LB: Davies (22); Rose (24)
CB: Dier (21); Chiriches (25); Vertonghen (28); Fazio (28); Kaboul 29
RB: Walker (24); Yedlin (21)
MF: Bentaleb (20);Stambouli (24);Capoue (26);Paulinho (26);Mason (23);Dembele (27)
AM: Lamela (23); Eriksen (23); Townsend (23); Chadli (25)
FW: Kane (21); Soldado (29); Adebayor (31)

Not sure why the 'U21' stat is so vital, but despite the stat it seems that our team will be bunched around the 23 age mark. I fully expect that we'll see more youth next season, with Carroll (22), Prichard (22), Onomah (18) and Walker-Peters (18) amongst a few who I think Poch will want to use, or at least test in the summer.


So the question - do we lack ability around the 17-19 year old mark, or is our squad a bit too inexperience to mix in the proper youths. By all accounts, what we call youths are late-starters in football first-team terms!

 

[Blake Griffin]

we don't lack the talent, poch just lacks the balls. i can't blame him for that though, it's just the way the premier league is with the amount of money at stake and the constant need to deliver now, not later. why take a few years to develop the next messi when you'll probably be out of a job by the time the player realises their potential? the pl is in a bit of a mess to be honest and their solution seems to be to throw more and more money at it.

 

[225]

we don't lack the talent, poch just lacks the balls. i can't blame him for that though, it's just the way the premier league is with the amount of money at stake and the constant need to deliver now, not later. why take a few years to develop the next messi when you'll probably be out of a job by the time the player realises their potential? the pl is in a bit of a mess to be honest and their solution seems to be to throw more and more money at it.

Just think of how crazy it seems that Owen and Rooney were first team regulars and on the England peripheral at 16/17!

 

[fuzzylogic]

Reminds me of when I was younger, I was in full time with a Scottish team who were in the spl. The first team weren't playing well and the manager was at the under 18 games. When he was asked why not give some of the youth players a chance her replied "see the only thing those kids will get me?! The sack"

It takes a lot of guts to put kids into the team, as most go for the experienced "safer" option. Very interesting to see how poch will introduce some of the young talent we have over the next few years if he remains in charge all that time

 

[DaSpurs]

I think our use of them will improve yet further exponentially if we can manage to unload a significant amount of the deadweight. For instance, Poch clearly doesn't rate Dembele, Paulinho, and Capoue as first choice options, so we simply need to let them go to make more room for youth players to see chances especially with us apparently looking to bring in a more experienced CM this summer. Just no sense in continuing to hold on to players of such worth if they're not going to feature, thus seeing their values decline, and also inhibiting routes to the first team.

Just sell them, let 'em go so both we and they can move on.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

well in our case it was certainly born of desperation not design that's pretty clear

 

[225]

well in our case it was certainly born of desperation not design that's pretty clear

Not necessarily - Bentaleb and Dier are a big proportion of that number, both being clearly first team material before the first ball was kicked IMO

 

[newbie]

we don't lack the talent, poch just lacks the balls. i can't blame him for that though, it's just the way the premier league is with the amount of money at stake and the constant need to deliver now, not later. why take a few years to develop the next messi when you'll probably be out of a job by the time the player realises their potential? the pl is in a bit of a mess to be honest and their solution seems to be to throw more and more money at it.

Sorry I didn't mean to repeat you I replied to the wrong post lol

I think it's a combo of balls and understanding what our academy is good at, a lot of our players are very technical and not physically imposing so they take longer to come though. If your physically big / made like a man or have a tonne of pace you tend to come though younger.

Rooney was built like a man when he was 16-17 so was Ross Barkley
Sterling, Lennon, Walcott reticulas pace.

Our players are good enough I just think some of them need a bit longer to fill out, like Harrison, KWP, Wink, all need a bit more man strength.

Also is it not the fault of the league, to much money to many sackings no one backs a manager and let's them build over a few years.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

Not necessarily - Bentaleb and Dier are a big proportion of that number, both being clearly first team material before the first ball was kicked IMO

Bentaleb possibly, although at the beginning of the season I'm pretty sure it was intended that Capoue/ Paulinho/ Dembele would have been above him in the pecking order

I dont bekueve Dier was supposed to come straight in as a 1st team player. He got a break at RB because Kyle W had a shitty season, and obvs he was never supposed to be above Kaboul (captain!) & Verts in the pecking order at CB (his actual position)

 

[225]

I dont bekueve Dier was supposed to come straight in as a 1st team player. He got a break at RB because Kyle W had a shitty season, and obvs he was never supposed to be above Kaboul (captain!) & Verts in the pecking order at CB (his actual position)

I don't know - he started the first game of the season.

I really like Eric - probably one of my favourite players for us. He's already played more games for us than Sporting!

 

[newbie]

Not necessarily - Bentaleb and Dier are a big proportion of that number, both being clearly first team material before the first ball was kicked IMO

Both are big lads as well, I bet if you factored in sizes / 100 m times it would be really depressing

Reminds me of when I was younger, I was in full time with a Scottish team who were in the spl. The first team weren't playing well and the manager was at the under 18 games. When he was asked why not give some of the youth players a chance her replied "see the only thing those kids will get me?! The sack"

It takes a lot of guts to put kids into the team, as most go for the experienced "safer" option. Very interesting to see how poch will introduce some of the young talent we have over the next few years if he remains in charge all that time

Roll on the Europa league if ever there was an opportunity to play them.

I think our squad make up does not help where are the exp heads to play young players beside.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

I don't know - he started the first game of the season.

I really like Eric - probably one of my favourite players for us. He's already played more games for us than Sporting!

I know ... Because Kyle was injured. Then he scored a couple in quick succession, Kyle never challenged him much & he kind of stuck & did well. But it was not by design

 

[225]

I know ... Because Kyle was injured. Then he scored a couple in quick succession, Kyle never challenged him much & he kind of stuck & did well. But it was not by design

To be honest, I think we missed Kyle so much for so long, we convinced ourselves he was better than he actually is perhaps.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

To be honest, I think we missed Kyle so much for so long, we convinced ourselves he was better than he actually is perhaps.

Oh you think? Maybe. I think he's just had a shitty shitty season & he'll be back on form at some point ripping it up.

He's not got a brain cell in him but that doesn't matter so much for Pochs (supposed) system, he's perfect for it

We shall see!

 

[225]

Oh you think? Maybe. I think he's just had a shitty shitty season & he'll be back on form at some point ripping it up.

He's not got a brain cell in him but that doesn't matter so much for Pochs (supposed) system, he's perfect for it

We shall see!

Yeah, he's always had a mistake in him, and we just haven't been able to afford that from him. I think we remembered him being more solid than he actually is.

Rose turned it all around, so there's still hope, but Dier has had performances at RB this season that I doubt we'll ever see from Kyle, and the lad has only just turned 21.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

Yeah, he's always had a mistake in him, and we just haven't been able to afford that from him. I think we remembered him being more solid than he actually is.

Rose turned it all around, so there's still hope, but Dier has had performances at RB this season that I doubt we'll ever see from Kyle, and the lad has only just turned 21.

Yeah he's been good. But he's not quick enough I don't think - he's a CB who can fill in at RB imo

 

[225]

Yeah he's been good. But he's not quick enough I don't think - he's a CB who can fill in at RB imo

If he can provide Beckham-esq crosses from 30 yards back from the touchline then that's a big bonus over Walker/Townsend, who speed down the wing and smash a cross into either the side netting or the first defender.

 

[Geyzer Soze]

If he can provide Beckham-esq crosses from 30 yards back from the touchline then that's a big bonus over Walker/Townsend, who speed down the wing and smash a cross into either the side netting or the first defender.

Let's not bring Townsend into this!

 

[Blake Griffin]

Just think of how crazy it seems that Owen and Rooney were first team regulars and on the England peripheral at 16/17!

there have probably been other players down the years who could've played at the same age but just weren't thrown in in the same way those two were. onomah's 18 now and i think he could contribute, he's good enough technically, maybe slightly under-par physically but has enough to handle himself. his only weakness to me is he lacks a bit of competitiveness, that will hopefully come in time but until then we could just tell him the other team have been talking smack about his mum or something.

 

[225]

there have probably been other players down the years who could've played at the same age but just weren't thrown in in the same way those two were. onomah's 18 now and i think he could contribute, he's good enough technically, maybe slightly under-par physically but has enough to handle himself. his only weakness to me is he lacks a bit of competitiveness, that will hopefully come in time but until then we could just tell him the other team have been talking smack about his mum or something.

I find it odd that we let Crouch go at 19 as if he was never going to cut it, yet 15 years later he's still breaking records and scoring goals in the PL.