Changing Expectations for Tottenham Hotspur’s Youth Will Test New Hopefuls

For the Tottenham Hotspur players involved in last Friday’s 2-1 Premier League 2 defeat to Manchester City, the occasion was one of the last of its kind. Those involved will be among the final youth-team players to get a showcase at this version of White Hart Lane.

This generation of prospects and those to come over the next few years will probably not mind too much. Their allotted under-23 and FA Youth Cup games may take place at temporary venue Wembley Stadium from next season (though that part of the arrangement has not been confirmed), and beyond that at the brand-spanking-new ground being developed in N17 right now.

As the environments in which these first-team glimpses take place are set to change, so are the expectations for these Tottenham youngsters. For those involved against Man City, such as the highly touted attacker Marcus Edwards and goalscorer Shayon Harrison, their development is occurring in a landscape shaped by those who have come immediately before them.

Up until recently, it had been individuals (or at most, a smattering) rather then crops of players coming up via the Tottenham youth team in the last two decades or so.

Sol Campbell, Stephen Carr and Ledley King were among the standouts. Others such as Stephen Clemence, Luke Young, Stephen Kelly and Jamie O’Hara had solid spells for a time but ended up moving elsewhere.

Albeit with a year or two in between them here and there, the group produced or honed in the Spurs academy, Nabil Bentaleb, Tom Carroll, Harry Kane, Ryan Mason, Danny Rose and Andros Townsend, has been the best since the 1980s.

They have not matched the success of those to emerge in Keith Burkinshaw’s sides back then—Garry Brooke, Mark Falco, Micky Hazard, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Hughton and Paul Miller among them (with captain Steve Perryman a holdover from an earlier generation). But while some have since moved on, all have contributed to one of the club’s healthier periods of the modern era.

This is no small thing.

In the Premier League weekend just gone, Bleacher Report’s Chelsea correspondent Garry Hayes wrote about how pleasing it was to see Blues manager Antonio Conte field some of their own youngsters in the win over champions Leicester City (see below).

From Stamford Bridge for @br_uk: I get carried away with #CFC’s youth presence against Leicester…https://t.co/8PopldOWMH

— Garry Hayes (@garryhayes) October 15, 2016

The Blues’ spending power since billionaire Roman Abramovic’s takeover has meant successive managers being able to bypass academy hopefuls for finished products. Yet with a dominant youth group achieving success Hayes compares to that of Manchester United’s famous Busby Babes, there is a clear will to see if talents such as Nathaniel Chalobah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek can make a difference.

Like Conte may be seeing at Chelsea now, Tottenham’s managers over the last few years have taken note of what was going on in their junior ranks.

Harry Redknapp handed several players their debuts before Andre Villas-Boas had more substantial looks at some. Tim Sherwood, involved in the academy before briefly becoming head coach, looked set to be a significant champion of several, but it has been current boss Mauricio Pochettino who has instead reaped the benefits of these players.

It has not been a full-blown harnessing.

Expensive acquisitions from elsewhere are still being made and will continue to be if Pochettino deems them more capable of improving an ambitious squad.

The Argentinian has widened and kept open the route to his first team, though. As long as good players are continuing to be developed at …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com