I'm not 100% sure, but I believe we play pretty young sides in these competitions.

The u21 side would be bolstered by Oduwa, Alli, Bentaleb, Ball, Ogilvie who are all playing first team football now.

Players will be stepping up from the u18s to fill the gaps, and younger players moving in to the u18s.

The whole club has shifted downwards in age. The seniors average just 24 these days

all the under 21 players are in the first team squad !

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I imagine kids looking at picking a club will be looking at their chances of breaking in to the first team, rather than winning youth titles.

Ehioghu and/or the U18 coach (ex player forget his name, Kieron McKenna?) are on record as saying the youth teams are geared up entirely to produce players for the first team, and although results are nice they are secondary to preparing players for this - playing the same way as the seniors.

Ehioghu and/or the U18 coach (ex player forget his name, Kieron McKenna?) are on record as saying the youth teams are geared up entirely to produce players for the first team, and although results are nice they are secondary to preparing players for this - playing the same way as the seniors.



Which is exactly what they should be doing. The main focus of any club is the FIRST TEAM & everything should be geared up to that end.

The more successful the team is then the easier it is to attract quality young players.

Our current set up is approaching the very top level, the only thing missing is the stadium & that is being addressed.

Hotspur Way has been acclaimed as one of the best (if not the best) in Europe which is some accolade indeed.

We have some of the best young players available and hopefully a number of those will continue on to the first team over the next few years.

As stated we already have the youngest starting eleven in the PL this season & as games go on then their experience will increase, as will their understanding of each others game.

I think we just need another more experienced head in the midfield, Cabaye would have been good, but someone of that ilk would help us immensely!

hi genius

4-1 to the tottenham

a good example is Chelsea, win the youth cup regularly but very few progress to the 1st team squad

Morning Chronic


Dave&Danny...............................................Quite right, Chelsea are not interested in bringing youth forward. Apparently Mourinho NEVER watches the youth team, how true that is I am not sure.

However what is true is that Chelsea have 32, yes 32 players out on loan!!!

It is obvious they are stockpiling players to prevent other teams buying them.

I think it is about time the loan system was reformed & teams should not be able to loan in more than 3 players, and loan out more than 11.

We certainly don't have the pick of the players. Arsenal and Chelsea pay ridiculously and offer ricidulous gifts for young players. Arsenal especially. There rubbish academy is now coming back to a very good standard of player.

We got more clever over the years inglethorpe, sherwood, Clive Allen and Ramsey were key to everything. Not so much Ferdy always see him as a joker type hanger on....maybe I'm wrong considering his position at qpr. But I certainly never see nor heard any evidence of his assistance over the years. Only his silliness.

our current setup is actually a very poor one. The loss of sherwood and Ramsey is huge for all the mickey taking you guys really have no idea how much of the heartbeat they were.

sadly John McDermott is not the guy to lead us though he has overseen a dramatic downturn and lots of problems. Issues with yahayas work permit, azzaoui contract issues, lesniak contract issue, told to sign a left back tries to inexplicably loan one from man united, promotions of inexperience. We were the best academy and we have become a bit of a laughing stock at the minute.

Some good players under the the first years. Tashan Oakley-booth looks sensational, Paris maghoma brother to Christian and jacques. Bennetts.

We just have to be proactive and use our facilities to our advantage. there can be no excuse not to develop players living in such a huge catchment area and the facilities. Keep in mind we are still developing our training ground so there is more good news to come!

If you guys are ever bored go down to the training ground and watch a game it's fun cos there's no pressure and you get to meet parents some who are very influential in football circles. Such as andros's dad. Always good to Discuss football. No beer there though!

perhaps we can ask mr townsend senior to ask mr townsend junior to spend a bit of time on the training pitch working on his final ball.

Im an avid follower of our youth set up, can't get to see the youth's playing unfortunately but i read as much about them as possible.

As others have mentioned, our U21 squad have been deprived of certain players like Oduwa and Ball who our out on loan. and Winks, Pritchard and Onomah who are involved with our 1st team squad.
We are then forced to play 17 and 18 year olds up against teams with older and more physically developed players.

The philosophy of our club is to produce players who will make the grade in football over all leagues, hopefully some will make the grade with us and become premier league players.

If we can produce 2 or 3 players that can make the step up to our first team squad every season then i think we are doing very well.

I don't always agree with everything LLM says about our first team but he does know a lot about the youth set up that we have and its a bit disconcerting that since Sherwood and Ramsey have left the youth coaching standards we now have are lacking.

Lets hope this is put right soon as we can't afford to spoil all the hard work done before.

LLM..............................................Unfortunately your last few posts have leaned towards negativity about the club.

Whether you are correct is open for discussion, however people have to understand that the rate of attrition in youth players at clubs is phenomenally high.

For every youngster that makes it, 100 don't make it!!

Seeing as we already have a few original youth players in the first team set up, I think we are doing better than many clubs, including Chelsea, United & City!

Also I have been told that it has taken some younger players a little while to understand how they need to play & develop, which is entirely understandable!

Greaves,

Seeing as we already have a few original youth players in the first team set up, I think we are doing better than many clubs, including Chelsea, United & City

=====================

I think what LLM is saying is, the players we have seen progress well from the youth to the first team are from the Sherwood and Ramsay era. But since then, the quality has reduced and so have the youth results as a consequence. As such, the future of the current youth isn't as bright as it was for the crop who have made it.

I'm not ITK but thats how i read LLM's post....

Chicken....................................maybe so, however we still have several very exciting young players at the club who will be looking to progress into the Senior squad.

However as pointed out, one of the reasons they are not winning too much is that due to players progressing into older squads, the 17 & 18 year olds are having to play much older lads & consequently possibly finding it a step too far at this time.

I will give Sherwood & Co credit for the work they did originally and hopefully if McDermott is not the guy to bring these kids on, then we bring in someone who will!

Maybe it will take time for Poch's philosphy to bed in and in the meantime there will be a down turn in youth results.

Altough AVB did like his team to press and maybe would have liked to influence the youth system you always got the feeling that Sherwood was his own man when in the youth role with Harry letting him get on with things.

@genius/chicken

I was not being negative buddy i was just saying our standards have dropped and gave several examples (that are all current this season) as to why.

Inglethorpe,. Ramsey and Sherwood were responsible for our academy being the way it is. Without them we would not have the players nor the system in place. We would still be reguarly getting beaten by West Ham and Charlton for exciting talent.

John Mcdermott has been with us for a very long time but with respect to him he was sidelined for the likes of Inglethorpe and Sherwood because he was not making the best of what we had. Losing the influential people has left him by default back in charge.

Another problem is Milos Vlejkovic very talented about to lose him because Mcdermott did not sort the contract. Sherwood always sorted it. We have issues we never have at a time when it is so critical to lock this talent down and allow Poch to navigate them into the first team.

We have some exceptional talent CCV 17 years old captain of u21s, Maghoma developing rapidly, KWP the most versatile exceptional youngster, Onomah, Winks,etc. It is really exciting but we must not mess this up. These are first team talents in the waiting. Sometimes players fall of a cliff, attitude, money, bad advice but we must develop them to their fullest.

Right now it is like handling fine china, we just cannot afford to drop it. These kids will save us millions.

LLM,

Is there any chance that any of these players could just decide to do a Pogba, decide they deserve a first team chance earlier than we think, and sod off to another club for next to nothing?