Spurs academy

As this thread does not look like getting back to the main point...

Academies are not judged on trophies won. They are judged on the careers of players who come through them at senior level.

Bacelona's academy is not praised because of what the kids do, but because of what the kids have done as seniors. Same with the Ajax academy. Same with Uniteds of the 90s and Southamptons of now.

Where are all the products of the Spurs and Chelsea academies? I am struggling to think of any beyond John Terry (how old is he now), Carlton Cole, Peter Crouch and perhaps Stephen Caulker.

Hardly worth all the gloating and arguing.

well andros townsend is potentially the latest bright spark to come through spurs...

caulker and tom carroll are also in and around the first team set up.

of course if you go back a while you have sol campbell and ledley king at spurs. others include jake livermore who i dont rate much but he somehow has an england cap. then you got players who stuck around in the prem for a while like jamie o hara. there are quite a few spurs products floating about... more and more are gradually getting into our first team set up

We are not talking about potential, Chronic, nor retired players. Players who have made their mark in senior football and are relevant to today.

Compared to what the likes of Southampton, West Ham and even Leeds have produced neither Spurs or Chelsea come close.

In 5 years time, when the current youth team players have either made it, dropped down the leagues or left football altogether, you may be able to say you have a great academy.

As it is you can just say you have an academy that has lots of potential in it.

DJ. spurs academy has been poor for ages.. which is why levy has tried to sort it all out.. and it is just starting to reap rewards.. as i say, players are starting to come through now, slowly but surely.

i have high hopes for townsend and tom carroll in particular.

DJ.. but you are missing the point really... having ten class players playing in their prime today that came through west hams academy means their academy was excellent ten years ago, not excellent today...

you dont see the good work that an academy did at once... there is a delay as the player reaches his potential... once again, i point you in the direction of a couple of spurs players who are slowly coming out of a rejuvinated system that had been sleeping for about a decade

Yes, high hopes. But until these are realised the pointless point scoring and arguing about who has the best academy between you and the Chelsea fans is academic, especially on a thread about Aston Villa winning the Next Generation Series in which both Spurs and Chelsea participated in.

DJ.. i have congratulated the aston villa academy on this thread.

i then laughed at some joker who claimed that chelsea were one of the best two academies in the country.

i didnt even bring up the spurs academy.

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but you are missing the point really.
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Judging academies can only really be done in retrospect though. A massive part of the academy work is integrating the youngsters into the first team squad (which is where Spurs are) and then these establishing themselves as first team players (which is where Arsenal are).

The final step is these players then becoming top class and successful players (which is where Barca are).
Of course this may not be at the club they came through at, like WHU and Southampton.

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UTV Champions of Europe

well done Villa

didn't see the game sadly, must have some promising youngsters for the future there.

was on Eurosport of all channels, do have it, but why with it being an all English final couldn't it have been on the beebs or ITV tight winkers!

well done Villa just hope its not a consolation prize for going down.

Well done.
Villa have been at the business end of the Nextgen for the last two seasons, so the kids are ok.

I assume the SF with Sporting Lisbon was a bit of a saga (even with an alleged weaker starting XI of late, they are technically still a handful) .

Hopefully they will push on and get into the seniors ASAP (you need as many as possible to do so it seems) .

congrats, any players we should be looking out for with a big future?

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Grealish, Carruthers (thanks for him ) Drennan and Burke were the stand outs, but Drennan was injured before the semi so could have finished top scorer

Just depends now whether they can make the step up or not but at least they will be doing so as winners of a decent competition

"Just depends now whether they can make the step up or not but at least they will be doing so as winners of a decent competition"

A fair number of the Spurs Nextgen squad last season are now going great guns in the U21 squad. So perhaps you can expect a similar progression for your kids as a minimum.

hope so

there are other players with great potential who are either under 16 or injured as well... who would have thought old Turnip head would have such an ongoing influence on our club eh as it was he who demanded investment in the youth system