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Marcus Edwards

He was on loan so of course he couldn't get in the squad. No one knows whether he'll go to be a success or fall by the way side. Plenty have. I just have an issue with people infering he has ego issues from his awereness, movement and tracking. He has talent, that is a good thing! Give him some space and lets see what he does. Why write him off?

I'm not writing him off, I'm saying what I've seen. The first few times I saw him I thought Wow what a little gem, I think I wrote on here that he reminded me of Zola, then all of a sudden he was the next super star hyped up by people who had never seen him play 90 minutes. Maybe the hype got to him his impact on games grew less I've seen young players who have dominated games here like Mark Gower and Mark Yeates yet failed to make the grade and they gave far more than I've ever seen from Edwards. As I said earlier I hope I'm wrong and he turns out to be a world beater it's in his hands, he's got to convince the manager he's worth playing if he can't he's only got himself to blame as he does have skill and technique but that must be used in a productive way.
 
I base it on how I've seen him react in 20 odd games I've been at when he played, unlike many who have only read about him or seen short clips on the internet.

Out of curiosity, did you watch him at all at Excelsior? I know he had that rep as a player in our youth teams, but his workrate at Excelsior was pretty impressive to me. He was constantly tracking back and almost always put in a real shift in the games I've watched. Obviously, he's best with the ball at his feet, but he worked much harder for the team this season than in any I ever saw for the youth team...
 
I think we should consider going for Martin Ødegaard myself. I think he could turn out to be a good long term replacement for Eriksen. Real Madrid might be willing to let him go too.

Obviously, it might be a little much to ask him to replace Eriksen at this early stage of his career, but his numbers in the Eredivisie have been legitimately awesome. He's put up very high creative numbers, as well as scoring some goals and taking a ton of shots. If there's any way Real Madrid would sell him, we should be all over that. Can't see them selling without a buy-back clause tho...
 
I am curious, what has he done so far to make you think he would be good for us?
I think he's a very talented player. He is creative, with the ability to create openings and chances through his vision and passing ability. He's good at threading passes through defenses, has a good left foot for set pieces and can also go past his man, even if he isn't the quickest over a longer distance. He's good technically and has a good football brain. He has also become stronger physically now. I also think he seems very dedicated and sensible and would never be accused of the same things as Marcus Edwards, for example, He can probably still develop the defensive side of his game though, as well as being a bigger goal threat himself.

He had a great season for Vitesse this season. I can't say that I have seen every game, far from it, but when I have seem them, he has always been the best player on the pitch and a creative force. People who follow the Dutch league more closely than I do, mention him as one of the players of the season along with some of the players who impressed for Ajax in the Champions League.

When he broke through in Norway at the age of 15 he was quite a sensation. Granted the Norwegian league isn't great, but no one had seen such a young kid play at senior level, let alone dominate it, before. Then I think he made a mistake of joining Real Madrid at a very young age, and his development seemed to stop for a few years. He played for their reserves in the third division, with players who didn't seem too keen on passing the ball to him, and seemed to lose his confidence. Instead of trying to create things, he started playing safe passes most of the time. But this season he seems to have takes great strides forward.

I don't think he's ready to be a regular starter for us already next season, but I don't think he'd be a worse squad player than for example Lamela. And if he gets a decent amount of game time and works well with our coaching staff, then I think he could be a top player within a couple of years. He has all the attributes.
 
Out of curiosity, did you watch him at all at Excelsior? I know he had that rep as a player in our youth teams, but his workrate at Excelsior was pretty impressive to me. He was constantly tracking back and almost always put in a real shift in the games I've watched. Obviously, he's best with the ball at his feet, but he worked much harder for the team this season than in any I ever saw for the youth team...

No but obviously shining in the dutch football for a team with no chance of competing in the league is no indication of performing well for a team in the top in PL, our own Janssen was ripping up the league but struggles over here. As I've said it's up to him to impress Poch not me or you and if he can't do that it's down to him, you can't give ever talented kid unlimited time in the hope he might be great, we would end up with 50 to 60 pros on the books costing a fortune and blocking other young players. You thinks he's got potential I certainly do but I've not been impressed with what I saw before he left on loan and if he comes back no different I think we should move him on, there should be plenty of teams in the Netherands interested if he's been so impressive over there.
 
It is easy to misunderstand Marcus Edwards. Spend some time with him and yes, you can see why people have found him hard to get through to. Why he might already have a reputation, at the age of 20, as a difficult, disengaged character. This is his first interview with a British newspaper and frankly it does not come easily to him.

But there is a blurred line between surly and shy, between rude and reserved. Spend enough time with Edwards and you find a young man who is honest, self-aware and who owns up to the mistakes he has made in his brief career so far. He admits that he was a difficult teenager in the Tottenham academy, and he knows that his loan spell at Norwich City should have gone better. But Edwards has just returned from a season on loan in Holland, when he showed exactly why there has been so much fuss about him already. This was the season when Edwards finally grew up.

Speak to Edwards about the game itself, or about his time at Excelsior, and you realise that all he ever wanted to do was to play football. With a ball at his feet and defenders to get past, he is one of the most expressive, confident, imaginative people this country has ever produced. It is the other side of industry, away from the pitch, that has not always come so easily to him, where he has never felt that same natural confidence. That is why he thinks people have got him wrong.

Does he feel misunderstood?

“Yeah, I think so, I think some people don’t understand me,” Edwards says. Why? “I don’t know, I think maybe it’s the way I talk.” And why is that? “I think that is how it is in football.”

Watch the clips of Edwards’ season on loan at Excelsior and you realise why so many people are so desperate for him to succeed. Here he was, thrown in at the deep end, away from home for the first time, in an unfamiliar country, slogging away at the wrong end of the Eredivisie. But it only takes a brief look at YouTube to see what a unique player he is. Watch for the balance, the change of pace, the close control, the core strength packed into that skinny frame. Watch for the way he goes past defenders, stops on the spot then goes past them again. Edwards’ hero is Neymar: watch him play and it starts to make sense.

Ask Edwards what his best game was for Excelsior and he points to a 2-1 home win over FC Emmen in February. Excelsior went 1-0 down early in the second half, when Edwards decided to turn it round. He scored the immediate equaliser, taking the ball 25 yards from goal, darting forward, shaping to shoot, beating his man, then finding the opposite bottom corner of the goal. Three minutes later he made the winner, getting the ball in the centre circle, running forward, defenders backing off him, sliding a perfect pass through to Dennis Eckert, who beat the keeper.

Excelsior were relegated in the post-season play-offs, but even then Edwards still posted some remarkable numbers, up there with the best players from the best teams. He led the Eredivisie in dribbles per game, with 3.3, ahead of Steven Bergwijn (3.2), of PSV Eindhoven and Holland. He was the second most-fouled player in the league, averaging three times per game, just behind Mark Diemers of Fortuna Sittard. And so Edwards, speaking to The Independent in a hotel in north London, can look back with real pride at his time in the Netherlands.

We watch the clips of his best moments for Excelsior. “It makes me feel good when I watch it, doing some good stuff on those clips,” he says. So what is he most proud of? “Taking players on. Just playing free football. I usually get good feedback about my playing, from players, managers. They always tell me I'm a good player.” Alessandro Damen, the goalkeeper, thinks Edwards has the ability to be the best player in the division. Jeffry Fortes, the right-back, says Edwards is the best he has ever played with. “My team-mates would always tell me, ‘keep going Marcus, you’re a good player.’”

Edwards is especially pleased with how he did, given how hard it was at first to settle in a new country. He missed his mother at home in Cheshunt, and at first he came back to north London whenever he could. “At the start of the season, I was finding it hard,” he says. “I missed home a lot. It was a new country. New people. It took me a while to get used to it.” At the start, as he struggled to find his feet, the locals in Rotterdam dubbed him het mysterie-Edwards.

The football was different, too. Before this season, Edwards’ senior experience was limited to 15 minutes for Tottenham in the League Cup in September 2016 and six minutes for Norwich City in the Championship in March 2018. This is why he was so keen to take the chance to go abroad this season, inspired by the success of his good friend Jadon Sancho at Borussia Dortmund. But making the switch from Spurs’ under-23s team was still a big jump.

“It took me a while to get used to it, professional football,” he says. “It's different from youth football.” For a start, he used to play as a no10 for Spurs’ youth teams, but in Holland he was pushed out on the right. He is happy to play in either position. “It’s a very different style of football than England. But I think it helped me gain experience. I think it's more tactical, because it's professional football. And I noticed that the defending was different, the shape, the formation. But I think it suits me.”

It took until the winter break - four weeks off over Christmas - for Edwards to come back and feel truly comfortable in Rotterdam, and to show what he can do. “After the winter break, I got my head down a bit more, and it was just straight football,” he says. “I think I turned it around.” It helped that his father Darren moved out to Rotterdam to be with him. In Excelsior’s first game after the break, Edwards was brilliant in a 3-2 defeat at Vitesse, skipping through defenders and finding the bottom corner from outside the box. Vitesse manager Leonid Slutsky said afterwards Edwards was an “incredible player”.

What mattered most during his time in Holland, even more than the football, was that Edwards realised what it took to be a professional player. How to take responsibility, looking after himself, training hard, tracking back, doing all the ugly, boring side of the game. The things that maybe did not come so naturally to him, but the things that you have to do to make it in the game.

“Just looking after myself was the hardest thing,” Edwards looks back. “Just being there all by myself. It was different for me. But I definitely learned what it takes. What you have to do every day, on and off the pitch, to be a professional footballer, how you have to live. I learned that. I think I did grow up.”

Edwards is mature enough to accept that he has not always been perfect, or the easiest player to handle. He knows that he now has a reputation, which he has to prove wrong. But when he looks back at the teenage Edwards, still playing for the Tottenham youth teams, he sees a very different person.

“I know I was a bit difficult when I was going through the academy,” Edwards admits. He accepts that he had his “ups and downs” with the Spurs staff. He knows that the disputes over the first professional contract he eventually signed in 2016 damaged his standing at the club. He knows that he never used to track back, when he was 16 or 17, and why the coaches used to be so hard on him about it.
 
But there is no question that Edwards looks at his time at Tottenham with real warmth. He feels grateful to Mauricio Pochettino for the support that he has given him. He appreciated the moment before his League Cup debut when Pochettino compared him to a young Lionel Messi. “It was just nice to know that the manager thought I was a good player.” He felt trusted and included when he started to train with the first team. “I just feel like he was very welcoming, he made you feel part of the team.” He is grateful to Danny Rose, Eric Dier and Georges Kevin N’Koudou for looking after him too.

Edwards’ relationship with Tottenham soured and Pochettino wrote in his book ‘Brave New World’ that he had “authority and behavioural problems”. In January 2018 he went to Norwich City on loan, but he barely made an impact, making just one brief substitute appearance. Daniel Farke said that he needed to work harder and eventually sent him back to Tottenham early.

Speaking about that difficult spell for the first time, Edwards is keen to give his own side of the story. Not least because he says he played through a back injury to get to Norwich in the first place. He never felt fully fit in training at Norwich, so could never give his best, but he did not want to pull out either. “I think there were loads of things with that one. I had a back injury when I went there. I was so eager to go, I just got through the clearance training [which is] to see if you're fit. But when I got there, and trained, I felt my back. I was in and out of training for two or three months. So that's the main reason"

There were criticisms from Norwich of his time-keeping and Edwards concedes that “towards the end of the loan”, he “started to get a bit frustrated”. But he is clearly hurt by what was said, and does not feel that he was judged fairly. "I think maybe it was a bit unfair. The whole situation that happened at Norwich, it already played onto what Pochettino said. Even though I was definitely a lot younger then, that's when I was growing up. It was a big misunderstanding."

“I feel as though, once Daniel Farke said it out loud, that is when I got misunderstood a bit. Because I felt I had already grown up. I thought I was already grown up, and all the attitude stuff, that was when I was going through the academy. When I hit 19, I felt I was a bit more mature. That’s why I feel I was misunderstood.”

But after the frustration of Norwich, and the eventual vindication of Excelsior, Edwards now feels ready to push on with the next stage of his career. He has one year left on his Spurs contract but he just wants to keep playing first-team football now, wherever that takes him.

“I definitely think I've got a better attitude now,” he says. “I'm just ready to kick on with my career. I think I needed this year. I know I'm a good player, I know I can do what I want to do. It has made me have a clear vision of what I want in football. I just want to get as high up to the top level as I can.”
 
Will be interesting to see where he is in pre-season. As in with the 1st team said or the development one.

Reading that interview, there’s nothing at all to imply he’s thinking about his career progression being at Spurs. I’d have expected something along the lines of ‘hoping now to get a chance to prove myself in pre-season’; ‘intend to come back and work hard to earn a place’; etc etc, but there’s none of that.
I hope he succeeds but I doubt it’s going to be with us. It doesn’t sound for example as if another lower league loan is what he is looking for.
 
Attitude is everything at the top level. I hope it can work out for Edwards. The type of player he is would benefit from playing for the top teams, rather than get kicked in the lower leagues.

But it's all on him.

I really think he would be an asset coming on at the end of games for us. Especially when teams are tired out. He'd offer something we don't have at the moment.
 
I really think he would be an asset coming on at the end of games for us. Especially when teams are tired out. He'd offer something we don't have at the moment.

What does he offer that Nkoudou doesn't? A few stepovers and nothing against any decent defender
 
Reading that interview, there’s nothing at all to imply he’s thinking about his career progression being at Spurs. I’d have expected something along the lines of ‘hoping now to get a chance to prove myself in pre-season’; ‘intend to come back and work hard to earn a place’; etc etc, but there’s none of that.
I hope he succeeds but I doubt it’s going to be with us. It doesn’t sound for example as if another lower league loan is what he is looking for.
I think we read too much into that.
Surely it's pragmatic to not expect it to happen at Spurs, but to keep doing what he does and if he impresses the coaches here, great. But if it's coaches somewhere else, great too.
Sounds like a professional attitude - the thing he was accused of not being. (Rightly so a few years ago based on his comments).

Important to remember how young he is too.
Championship loan wouldn't go amiss
 
What does he offer that Nkoudou doesn't? A few stepovers and nothing against any decent defender
He can beat a player 1v1 using a change of direction with close control to get the player off balance. Someone like GKN needs a lot of space to use his speed.
I think Edwards is very talented and would love him to succeed at Spurs. Unfortunately I think he's had his chance now, so expect to see him moved on. Really hope I'm wrong though.
 
I think we read too much into that.
Surely it's pragmatic to not expect it to happen at Spurs, but to keep doing what he does and if he impresses the coaches here, great. But if it's coaches somewhere else, great too.
Sounds like a professional attitude - the thing he was accused of not being. (Rightly so a few years ago based on his comments).

Important to remember how young he is too.
Championship loan wouldn't go amiss
Can't see another loan happening. He's only got 1 year left on his contract and can't see him signing a new one unless he's given a chance to progress at Spurs.
Will be an important summer for his career.
 
Bye Bye Marcus Edwards.
Edwards agent is the agent of Walker and Rose.
Edwards has one year left on his Spurs contract. The agent wants a move this summer.
The journo handed this exclusive interview is Jack Pitt Brooke who got the exclusive that Walker was leaving and joining City.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...d-barcelona-mauricio-pochettino-a7711791.html

This is clearly the agent contacting the journo to do a PR exercise on Edward's brand to help him get a move.
 
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It’s a shame Edwards was always excellent in Fm2017 when he got his chance. He’s the sort of player I could see Poch really help develop but given their past relationships I’m not sure that would happen. But Poch has shown he can let byegone be bygones. I think Edwards would work better in a 4231, not sure he’d fit in pochs diamond formation.
 
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