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Luca Williams-Barnett

Mabspurs said:
The main reason why Edwards' career hit the buffers was mental...hopefully LWB is made of sterner stuff...
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I'd say that 27 appearances for Burnley last season indicates he's probably matured a bit later. He will get a lot of game time in the championship this season I reckon.
 
I think a lot of these players who get hyped in the youth team followed their natural course and it’s not a case is mis managment from Spurs.

The exception for me would be Josh Onomah. Had he been given the opportunity and minutes that went to Winks & Sissoko he would have developed in to a top player.
 
Mabspurs said:
The main reason why Edwards' career hit the buffers was mental...hopefully LWB is made of sterner stuff...
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There were issues in the background, Poch was not impressed with how he handled himself. Farke thought he had alot of growing up to do.

Shame as he was supremely talented, but you can't outcoach someone's mentality
 
MartyFunkhouser said:
There were issues in the background, Poch was not impressed with how he handled himself. Farke thought he had alot of growing up to do.

Shame as he was supremely talented, but you can't outcoach someone's mentality
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Be careful. People have said that about Djed Spence and been accused....
 
robp135 said:
I think a lot of these players who get hyped in the youth team followed their natural course and it’s not a case is mis managment from Spurs.

The exception for me would be Josh Onomah. Had he been given the opportunity and minutes that went to Winks & Sissoko he would have developed in to a top player.
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I don't.

I think we focus perhaps too much on the youngsters' academy journey and often forget about the last mile. Our ultimate objective is to find players that can operate at a top 4 PL level. A bi-product of that is that they don't quite make it but return an academy profit. We've had lots of players like Mason, Pritchard, Townsend etc that had a great academy journey but just fell short at the last hurdle. For me, I don't think Onomah was able to navigate the last mile. His playing history since sort of supports that argument.
 
Muttley said:
I don't.

I think we focus perhaps too much on the youngsters' academy journey and often forget about the last mile. Our ultimate objective is to find players that can operate at a top 4 PL level. A bi-product of that is that they don't quite make it but return an academy profit. We've had lots of players like Mason, Pritchard, Townsend etc that had a great academy journey but just fell short at the last hurdle. For me, I don't think Onomah was able to navigate the last mile. His playing history since sort of supports that argument.
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Mason & Townsend both played for England. They could have been kept around the squad for longer. I would argue we would have been better off with Townsend over NJie or Nkoudou and Mason over Sissoko. We got good fees for them but they were re-invested poorly.
 
robp135 said:
Mason & Townsend both played for England. They could have been kept around the squad for longer. I would argue we would have been better off with Townsend over NJie or Nkoudou and Mason over Sissoko. We got good fees for them but they were re-invested poorly.
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You sort of prove one of my other points actually. It's not OK for us to be saying that the kids aren't ready for 1st team football and then go ahead and watch the senior players underperform at that same level. I've seen loads of this over the years at Spurs and you mention a couple of interesting names. I think Njie was way better than what we saw at Spurs. Nkoudou was terrible. Neither tore trees up obviously.

What happened with Bentaleb and Mason was all good in my mind. Poch tested them out at the highest level and the pair of them clearly listened to his tactics more than the others like Capoue, Paulinho, Stambouli and even Dembele. However, the 3 that made the journey were Dier, Dembele and new signing Wanyama. The rest got discarded one way or the other including our youngsters. They served a purpose for a short while.

All you can do is give these kids the opportunity to succeed or fail fast, knowing most will not make the last mile and become a Walker, Vertonghen, Dembele or Eriksen. However, a couple just might. How do you know if you're just preferring seniors who have reached the end of their runway and clearly aren't top 4 players?

It's sort of why I hope RDZ keeps those 2 or 3 spaces at the top end of his squad for exciting youngsters.
 
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