The Youth Academy

comment by Jadon The King Sancho (U10026)
posted 30 seconds ago
comment by Robbing Hoody - Legacy Fan (U6374)
posted 17 minutes ago
comment by Dave&Danny (U4428)
posted 23 seconds ago
It is such a huge leap from academy to Premier league that very few opportunities for these players, should have kept the reserve teams were they play consistently every week against older players
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I dont really agree with that because there is a plethora of young English talent playing in the Premier League atm. Arguable the best U23's set of players just be sheer volume and talent than anywhere in the world playing in the hardest league regularly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That just means the very best talent in England are very good, doesn’t mean the overall difference between academy and premier league football isn’t ridiculous - and why so few players get opportunities for their parent clubs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

It was more in relation to going back to the old reserve leagues where you'd have 17 year olds randomly playing against seasoned professionals. I like the youth revamp and think it's working basically.

Yeah but the reserve league was a higher standard, so the jump to premier league level wasn’t as big. It’s a problem because all the best players are now being hoovered up by the biggest clubs, so many of the players that would have been playing first team football at lower leagues often aren’t now - even if they are at a high level than their predecessors because of the improvements in coaching.

It’s one of the issues being brought up with this new review of the football pyramid in England. The changes to the academy system facked a lot of clubs down the bottom of the pile and the big clubs have massively exploited it, more so than they used to.

If you can get 1 world class player a decade then your academy is doing well.

Then you supplement that with good players who can either step into squad players or you can sell to make the academy profitable.

We’ve been doing that for a while so I say it’s going pretty well.

We produce a steady stream of players that go on to have good careers. On these shores and abroad. Quite a number of our players from the academy go and play over seas.

Skipp looks like the latest in a steady line of decent academy products.

I think one thing that some clubs get right that Spurs haven't (and neither have Arsenal historically) is getting decent fees for the guys who aren't quite good enough.

It's really unlikely that you'll unearth a consistent number of players good enough for the first team if you're already a decent side

*That said we've had a couple of good fees lately, Willock and Iwobi were incredible deals for us

For one reason or another Spurs seem to produce a lot of highly rated youngsters. Almost none of them go on to reach their supposed potential. Most end up as lower-league players.

That's true of most academies, fair enough. But either Spurs aren't coaching/managing them well enough to help them reach that potential, or Spurs are over-hyping their youngsters and overstating their potential. In either case it makes the academy productivity look worse than it actually is.

comment by Amanda Hugginkiss (U11574)
posted 20 minutes ago
For one reason or another Spurs seem to produce a lot of highly rated youngsters. Almost none of them go on to reach their supposed potential. Most end up as lower-league players.

That's true of most academies, fair enough. But either Spurs aren't coaching/managing them well enough to help them reach that potential, or Spurs are over-hyping their youngsters and overstating their potential. In either case it makes the academy productivity look worse than it actually is.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think it is Spurs who over hype the promising youngsters but the fans and journos or even managers like Poch who called Marcus Edwards the next Messi for example 🤦🏻‍♂️. I have even been guilty of doing the same with Scarlett but I would never label a player the next XYZ ect.

I remember Ali Gold hyping up Troy Parrot well before he made his debut. Hopefully he has learned his lesson.

Hopefully Mason is installing good values into the youth team players to keep their feet on the ground.

I have a mate who teached Parrot's group NVQ. He said Parrot was a right cockey lad and most of them drove BMW's at 17 and 18 onwards. He also said Spurs loved 5ft 5inch midfielders lol

The ones that usually make it go under the radar like Kane did for some time, Winks (to a degree), King, Skipp and now Tanganga.

I think that the higher up the league you go the harder it is to get players through in to the team, unless they are clearly excellent.

Chelsea have a lot right now but their introduction was almost forced upon them by a transfer ban, ordinarily they would have just gone out and bought.

But Chelsea are also a good example of the secondary function of an academy, that is to produce players to be sold. They get good money for their academy kids and that has contributed to keeping their net spend down to about £25m a year over the last 5 years. Last year they made £15m the year before £25m selling kids you've never heard of.

So i would say the ultimate function of an academy is to bring through quality players but its quite a rare thing. People talking about Liverpool, from Owen through to TAA, that's what, a 20-25 year period. You might produce 1 top class player every 5 years or so, beyond that it produces squad players and players to be sold on for reasonable money. Its a triangle.

comment by LukaBrasi COYS #FreePalestine (U22178)
posted 16 minutes ago
comment by Amanda Hugginkiss (U11574)
posted 20 minutes ago
For one reason or another Spurs seem to produce a lot of highly rated youngsters. Almost none of them go on to reach their supposed potential. Most end up as lower-league players.

That's true of most academies, fair enough. But either Spurs aren't coaching/managing them well enough to help them reach that potential, or Spurs are over-hyping their youngsters and overstating their potential. In either case it makes the academy productivity look worse than it actually is.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think it is Spurs who over hype the promising youngsters but the fans and journos or even managers like Poch who called Marcus Edwards the next Messi for example 🤦🏻‍♂️. I have even been guilty of doing the same with Scarlett but I would never label a player the next XYZ ect.

I remember Ali Gold hyping up Troy Parrot well before he made his debut. Hopefully he has learned his lesson.

Hopefully Mason is installing good values into the youth team players to keep their feet on the ground.

I have a mate who teached Parrot's group NVQ. He said Parrot was a right cockey lad and most of them drove BMW's at 17 and 18 onwards. He also said Spurs loved 5ft 5inch midfielders lol

The ones that usually make it go under the radar like Kane did for some time, Winks (to a degree), King, Skipp and now Tanganga.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah true enough - I suppose when I said "Spurs overhype their youngsters" I meant Spurs generally (i.e. journos and fans included), not necessarily the club staff specifically

Tbf we have produced a fair amount of players who went on to have careers in the PL/championship - Townsend, Livermore, Winks, Mason, Walker-Peters, Caulker, Tanganga etc