Spurs U21’s, U18’s and other youth news – 2015/16 Edition

[Spursidol]

I just assumed poch's hands were tied om this matter due to the club's stance on contract rebels

I thought it wasn't a matter of poch not rating or having fallen out with him but rather him being unavailable for selection due to the club's policy in regards to his expiring contract

Other way around.

Poch hasn't played him or included him in first team training, so Veljkovic will not sign another contract.

The easy deal would be for Poch to include him ( give reassurance and Veljkovic would sign.

But all the news is that Poch is not (above one poster says it's Poch's own decision) hence the current position.

Sounds madness to me - Milos is potentially very very good, as good a prospect as any of those now first team players, so crazy if he's allowed to walk for a development fee (lets say £500k versus £10m+ if he played a season at Spurs

 

[Spursidol]

Trix has basically said it's not in Poch's hands currently. Which indicates it is instruction from higher up the chain.

Where's he said that ?

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

Where's he said that ?

Ratings v Arsenal thread, a few posts from Page 6 onwards,

 

[CJMurray]

Trix has basically said it's not in Poch's hands currently. Which indicates it is instruction from higher up the chain.

Personally think that's nonsense. If Poch rates Veljkovic and wants to use him and Veljkovic wants to stay at the club (as he indicated this summer) then a deal would be sorted, surely.

I think it's just abundantly clear (along with a fair amount of ITK) that Poch just doesn't rate him.

 

[Luka Van der Bale]

Ye well next year Roles will be competing with Duncan and Marsh who have already played more u18s games than him this year so I assume they are rated higher and then 2 England internationals who will have joined the academy and Skipp who won't officially be part of the academy but captain of the England u16s. I actually posted a couple of months ago what the team might be, and there's at least one international in every position and some more on the subs bench but none at RB. There are some players I can think of that can play RB and they have actually had good rood reviews. Griffiths is one of them but it seems he had been converted to a CB and more recently a striker lol so while he looked good at RB I don't think he plays there anymore. The other is Hinds who can play LB,LW and RB and was one of our best players at the Lion City Cup. Or we could sign an international to join our academy to keep it going all the way through the 11.

That attack though will be class. One may have to make way if Kirby plays no.10 though and they go with Marsh or Skipp at DM. Really want to see Roles get game time this year though, to see how good he is now.

Living in NI, I've obviously never seen any of these lads play live, and my whole knowledge of the youth comes from this thread. Would be very interested in seeing you repost said team you mentioned.

 

[IGSpur]

Living in NI, I've obviously never seen any of these lads play live, and my whole knowledge of the youth comes from this thread. Would be very interested in seeing you repost said team you mentioned.

That's cool. So I make it, with all of the starting XI England players.

------------------Whiteman---------------
??---------Eyoma----Tanganga------Brown
----------------TOB-----Kirby---------------
Edwards---------Shashoua-------------Bennetts
---------------------Sterling----------------------

Skipp (Eng u16s captain) DM, A.Shashoua winger (Eng u16s camps), Thorpe striker(Wales/Eng u16s camps), Roles CM/AM/DLP (Cyprus u17s). Could just as easily take out Shashoua for example and put Kirby there and Skipp come into DM where he has captaine England. or put Edwards no.10 and TOB on RW. Lastly, we also have 3 CMs that have been called up to England u15s in the 3 midfield positions in, Maghoma (CM), Bowden (DM) and White (AM) but they wouldn't make that team as others would obviously get a chance

Then we also have Dinzeyi who has been playing u18s at 15 at CB and looked one of our better players. Plus Griffits who has been playing really well, and other players we have seen looking good in Lion City Cup. So maybe Hinds or even Lyons-Foster at RB. Also the other generally good players supportng them, like Matt Lock and Rodel Richards who have also looked/sounded good from reports

Can't imagine many better teams around than that. Funnily enough that was the team I watched in the RIga vids, where you could see just how good they were.

 

[BC11]

I only though it applied at youth level, didn't know whether it could be enforced at senior level, as surely the need of the team is greater in that sense, but I did suggest it as a reason earlier. However, like I said i doubt that would be the case as the needs of the first team must be paramount. Also if he did play him I reckon he would instantly sign a contract. The fact that he doesn't even train with the first to me suggests a fall out to me, as like I said, while people don't have to rate a player, for a player who is at least Championship quality and sought after by a La Liga team to not train with the first team suggests a disagreement. I mean Maghoma, Miller, Harrison et al have all been seen training with the first team at some point, and you'd be mad to argue they were better than Milos. Also as @BC11 says it is a purely Poch decision so again sounds like it is a personal thing. Sad if he has fallen out with a youth player, especially one who has been around so long.

It's been communicated to Veljkovic that Pochettino thinks he lacks 'energy' and 'intensity'. I don't know if that's a view shared by other first team coaches, although I think the youth coaches rate him.

When I said solely Pochettino I meant him and his staff as opposed to Levy as has been suggested.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

My gut feeling i8s that Milos is seen as not ideal for Poch - his reading of the game is so good he doesn't need to run around that much as he's always in the right position.

I fear Poch is trying to be too exacting in his requirements rather than working with the players he has available to him.

The parallel situation would be that when I went flat hunting in London I made a list of things I wanted - location, distance from tube, shops etc However like most people I found I had to make compromises both on the grounds of availability of flats as well as price. I'm actually glad I made some compromises - further from the tube etc as if I were flat hunting again, I'd not list some of the criteria I did as the flat I've got is pretty good.

Think Poch needs to be more flexible in trying out players - if the player is good enough but not quite ideal for Poch's system then it maybe that playing him, Poch will recognise that his criteria wasn't actually necessary .....

You think Pochettino could possibly see Dier as less of a compromise than Veljkovic?

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Just watched the Liverpool v Carlisle and notice Alex McQueen scoring his penalty. I think he was very unfortunate to have KWP coming through immediately behind him because I think he looked like a very competent rb.

 

[Spursidol]

You think Pochettino could possibly see Dier as less of a compromise than Veljkovic?

Last season Poch clearly decided that Kaboul, Capoue and a number of others were not part of the squad he wanted - and I think in the most part Spurs supporters would back those decisions as those players were not performing, on a consistent basis - Kaboul never seeming to be the same after his injury whilst Capoue had a reputation (from his previous coach) of needing a constant kick up the back side to perform at a good standard.

With the injury to Walker, it meant that Poch needed to look at alternative players - and for the most part Dier performed much better than certainly I had expected in RB/CB roles.

So no surprise that Dier is playing a lot this season - albeit in the slightly unforeseen role of DM.

I think Veljkovic was ready to play first team football last season (and indeed Sherwood had given him a couple of brief runouts the previous season) but I can understand Poch thinking that there was too big a squad at the start of last season to give the relatively inexperienced Veljkovic game time - although arguably that could have (and maybe should have) changed by January after Poch stopped playing about 10 players and so had a squad of closer to only about 18 players to pick from.

This season with a bigger squad, Poch has overlooked Veljkovic, despite the fact he's obviously cover for Dier (one of the few pure dm's we have) and indeed can cover cb's.

All I think I'm saying here is that Dier was always going to play this season after a good season last season, whatever the compromise Poch needed to make (or to put it the other way, Poch would look a fool to drop Dier completely this season), whereas Poch didn't need to play Veljkovic - even though it would make absolute sense to bring him into the first team squad for depth

 

[Spursidol]

Just watched the Liverpool v Carlisle and notice Alex McQueen scoring his penalty. I think he was very unfortunate to have KWP coming through immediately behind him because I think he looked like a very competent rb.

Think Alex McQueen was a decent player - his cousin Darren was the first of his year group to play for the u18's but unfortunate with injuries - whilst Alex was one of the next of that group after Darren. However Alex didn't seem to maintain his early standout form and its only the best few in each year group who stand a chance of getting to the Spurs first team so I was expecting over the last 18 months or so that he was at Spurs that he would be released - and KWP coming up behind him was probably just the last straw.

Its a shame that Spurs are going to produce about 3 or 4 lads each year group who are decent but not good enough for Spurs - but of course the other way to look at it is that Spurs are training lads to play professional football and that probably 80% of the spurs academy graduates will find a contract at a decent level, even if only a maximum of 10% do that at Spurs

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Last season Poch clearly decided that Kaboul, Capoue and a number of others were not part of the squad he wanted - and I think in the most part Spurs supporters would back those decisions as those players were not performing, on a consistent basis - Kaboul never seeming to be the same after his injury whilst Capoue had a reputation (from his previous coach) of needing a constant kick up the back side to perform at a good standard.

With the injury to Walker, it meant that Poch needed to look at alternative players - and for the most part Dier performed much better than certainly I had expected in RB/CB roles.

So no surprise that Dier is playing a lot this season - albeit in the slightly unforeseen role of DM.

I think Veljkovic was ready to play first team football last season (and indeed Sherwood had given him a couple of brief runouts the previous season) but I can understand Poch thinking that there was too big a squad at the start of last season to give the relatively inexperienced Veljkovic game time - although arguably that could have (and maybe should have) changed by January after Poch stopped playing about 10 players and so had a squad of closer to only about 18 players to pick from.

This season with a bigger squad, Poch has overlooked Veljkovic, despite the fact he's obviously cover for Dier (one of the few pure dm's we have) and indeed can cover cb's.

All I think I'm saying here is that Dier was always going to play this season after a good season last season, whatever the compromise Poch needed to make (or to put it the other way, Poch would look a fool to drop Dier completely this season), whereas Poch didn't need to play Veljkovic - even though it would make absolute sense to bring him into the first team squad for depth

Your previous post talked about Poch being too exacting and mistaking his (Veljkovic's) good reading of the game for a lack of dynamism. Then he chooses to put Dier in CM, who's reading and dynamism isn't superior to Veljkovic's and his passing definitely isn't.

 

[Dharmabum]

Shame when you see Fazio running around like a donkey on the pitch and the captain of the U20 World Cup winners hasn't space in our squad. Guess Milos just unlucky not to get the same chance as Nabil, Ryan or even Tom.

I am not arguing whether Milos should be given a change or not (though I really would like it to happne) but too many on sc read too much into him being part of a U-20 World Cup winning team (yes, I know he was one of the best during the tournament). How many of that Serbian team do you think are good enough for Spurs right now or even in the future? So many U-17, U-19, U-20, U-21 WC winners never made it big.
Even stars from the "real" World Cup are not guaranteed to succeed in Spurs nor in the EPL.

 

[beats1]

I am not arguing whether Milos should be given a change or not (though I really would like it to happne) but too many on sc read too much into him being part of a U-20 World Cup winning team (yes, I know he was one of the best during the tournament). How many of that Serbian team do you think are good enough for Spurs right now or even in the future? So many U-17, U-19, U-20, U-21 WC winner never made it big.
Even stars from the "real" World Cup are not guaranteed to succeed in Spurs nor in the EPL.

People aren't rating him highly just because he won the world cup you dummy, they mention it because he was a level above that tournament. Interesting one of the best attackers from the tournament is getting a chance and scored a goal for Man Utd this week

He is highly rated because his performances have been good despite him making the step up to multiple levels at such a young age. Every coach he has played under has praised him including the coach who didn't play him much but explained it was due to him having a winning team and it not being fair to them.

Also this bollocks about world cup winners. He has performed well against the likes of Isco, Deulofeu, Morata and etc over two legs and keeping a clean sheet on one occasion in the U21's, in which they knocked out the strongest U21 team in the world imo.

Its the bullshit people sprout about him not being good enough due to him not playing is a joke, especially since most haven't seen him.

Interesting he was highly rated by our staff last season, by the staff before that, so much so that they gave a 15 year old a start in a preseason friendly(something that doesn't tend to happen especially at spurs) by the staff.

Its a funny one because were it not for Timmy, we would probably having the same argument about Bentaleb being good enough with a lot of people saying that he is a kid and too inexperienced. I remember saying when signed the Magnificent 7 that it was a mistake to sign 2 CM's when we had Dembele, Sandro and a very good CM prospect in Bentaleb. Veljkovic is a better player than Bentaleb was when he made his debut.

 

[spurs9]

Other way around.

Poch hasn't played him or included him in first team training, so Veljkovic will not sign another contract.

The easy deal would be for Poch to include him ( give reassurance and Veljkovic would sign.

But all the news is that Poch is not (above one poster says it's Poch's own decision) hence the current position.

Sounds madness to me - Milos is potentially very very good, as good a prospect as any of those now first team players, so crazy if he's allowed to walk for a development fee (lets say £500k versus £10m+ if he played a season at Spurs

That's assumption, not fact.

 

[glospur]

Trix has basically said it's not in Poch's hands currently. Which indicates it is instruction from higher up the chain.

I tend to think this is the case as well. If he's supposed to be one of the best prospects at the club, why was he on the bench in the U/21's in the last match and prior to that why had he hardly made an appearance despite apparently being fit? I highly doubt Poch has much influence over team selection in the U/21's so why would they not be selecting him/benching him if he's one of the best players? I think it's ridiculous to lay the blame fairly at the feet of Poch when all the evidence, including from ITK's, point to other factors being at play.

 

[spurs9]

People aren't rating him highly just because he won the world cup you dummy, they mention it because he was a level above that tournament. Interesting one of the best attackers from the tournament is getting a chance and scored a goal for Man Utd this week

He is highly rated because his performances have been good despite him making the step up to multiple levels at such a young age. Every coach he has played under has praised him including the coach who didn't play him much but explained it was due to him having a winning team and it not being fair to them.

Also this bollocks about world cup winners. He has performed well against the likes of Isco, Deulofeu, Morata and etc over two legs and keeping a clean sheet on one occasion in the U21's, in which they knocked out the strongest U21 team in the world imo.

Its the bullshit people sprout about him not being good enough due to him not playing is a joke, especially since most haven't seen him.

Interesting he was highly rated by our staff last season, by the staff before that, so much so that they gave a 15 year old a start in a preseason friendly(something that doesn't tend to happen especially at spurs) by the staff.

Its a funny one because were it not for Timmy, we would probably having the same argument about Bentaleb being good enough with a lot of people saying that he is a kid and too inexperienced. I remember saying when signed the Magnificent 7 that it was a mistake to sign 2 CM's when we had Dembele, Sandro and a very good CM prospect in Bentaleb. Veljkovic is a better player than Bentaleb was when he made his debut.

He was good in that tournament but didn't look a level above. The other Serbian CB looked just as good (Milos just edging it) and he wasn't Serbia's best player.

We have the same coaching staff this season as last, so if they highly rated him last but not this, then maybe he has declined or not shown the right attitude or something that isn't obvious to us. From what I have read, he hasn't been playing well for the U21s this season, so he won't be given a chance in the first team if he can't impress for them.

 

[spurs9]

Where's he said that ?

In response to a poster saying fans will be complaining about Dier & Kane being tired later in the season, he said:

"I don't think the Milos situation is helping either as far as DM is concerned, because he would be getting game time if Poch could pick him."

Followed by:

"If there is one thing imo Levy can not be criticised for it's his treatment of the young players moving up through the ranks. He has proved time and again that he is willing to renegotiate contracts almost on a biannual basis if it is deserved. When players on the other hand demand the earth, when they have as yet proved nothing I can see why we have a strict structure in place."

 

[Krafty]

The Veljkovic conundrum shows how difficult it can be to comment on issues at the club. We don't know what is going on, we don't know who is at fault, or even just what they are thinking.

Does Poch just not rate him, or will he not play someone who refuses to sign a new contract unless he gets big money/game time? What came first, the lack of games/money or the lack of a signature on a new contract?

We don't see training, we don't see the conversations between the two protagonists, it's all, at best, second hand stuff, so its difficult to make informed comment.

Two thoughts occur to me - one we don't have a backup DM for Dier, who is in danger of being this season's Kane - making a big breakthrough and very quickly finding himself with a lot of expectation/demands on his shoulder. With Eric, he loves to get stuck in so injuries are more likely and Poch needs to have someone in reserve ready to step in.

Two - I like the fact Poch isn't pussy footing around with players. You are either part of the team, or you're not, and he won't bend over backwards to accommodate one player. With the young players, there will always be another prospect coming through, so if Milos does leave I'm content that it will open the door to someone else (and as we still need a real playmaker in midfield, I would expect first team additions in midfield too). It's a shame as I personally think Milos could offer something now and progress to be very good, but we don't know the details and if he's asking for something ridiculous, like £20k a week, then you can see why the club won't cave in, and therefore why Poch will look at other options that are more likely to be here for the long term.

 

[THFCSPURS19]

McEvoy has signed for Stevenage on a 1-month loan.