Academy watch 2013/14

I believe this summer will be the last of the big spending at spurs for quite a few seasons to come.

We will have a new stadium to finance so we will be extremely reliant on our youth players to save us money.

Hopefully we will be able to count on the likes of Ceballos, Veljkovic, Luongo, Pritchard and maybe Coulthirst.

With the outstanding Baldini as our director of football, in my opinion his prerogative will be to unearth young unknowns from the far corners of the globe to replenish and build the best academy in England.

We have an outstanding training facility and i can see Spurs having an Ajax philosophy.

In years to come when the stadium is all but paid for, with the extra revenue we can then afford top wages to really compete.

For the near future we will have an outstanding squad that is more than capable of finishing top four and to strive to win domestic trophies.

I get the feeling our academy will be used more to generate revenue rather than first team players. If we get a few gems out of it then fantastic, but there won't be many who make it through. Not a criticism at all, we need to generate money to compete and this is as good a way as any.

For the clubs at the top end of the PL, the number of kids who come up thru the ranks en masse and become senior mainstays is currently quite low. Apart from George Grahams' kids in the late 80s, and Fergies kids in the mid 90s, there haven't been batches appearing anyway.

A lot of the kids won't make the top grade, but will still a have career somewhere in the game.

That's the way it should be with academies. We get a handful of quality players, selling the rest benefits other clubs. If sales means the academy pays for itself you can't really ask for more.

If there was a stat saying what the typical academy success rate for the PL is (say 1 in 20 etc) , then the expectations of supporters would be better managed. Too often the mindset goes from the next Messi to just pieces of meat.

It's often forgotten by fans that these are kids we're talking about, and they still have to develop physically, technically and mentally. Some develop well, others stall...they will still make the grade somewhere, but being part of our academy is no guarantee they will play for us..

There is some quality in our under 18s. I have mentioned them previously.

nathan oduwa striker has a ridiculous ratio of about 2 goals in 1 game. West brom nearly nicked him last season after poaching him on trial. Some of his touches are berbatov esque.

daniel akindayini had several flirtations with the under 21s strong pacey winger comfortable on the right but also able to play the lone striker role.

josh onomah what a talent. I think he has already played next gen football. Touch of the dembeles about him.

Luke mcghee goalkeeper at this stage seems a good prospect. Its always been my opinion despite being a massive fan of lawrence vigaroux that vigaroux holds up mcghees progress. Vigaroux is a roy of the rovers story and he gets special treatment but I do wonder if this has a knock on effect.

joe prichard: tricky left winger stepping up several times last season to under 18s hopefully will become a fixture of the team. No relation to alex however.

You going to start to watch the under 18s rdbd?

"There is some quality in our under 18s. I have mentioned them previously."

Banned (not SC ITK accredited) .


"You going to start to watch the under 18s rdbd?"

They play mainly on saturdays at midday (when I am out and about) .

Thanks for the update LLM, here's hoping they keep progressing

Let Blackburn get 3-0 up. Sack the Academy staff !!!