Hahahaha F off
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Player Archie Gray
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
- Start date
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Even at U21 he doesn’t really stand out, though I get he’s still only 18.
He just looks like a jack of some stuff, master of nothing type footballer. Still, Bentancur has managed to finesse a career out of it.
Just not seeing it.
He just looks like a jack of some stuff, master of nothing type footballer. Still, Bentancur has managed to finesse a career out of it.
Just not seeing it.
Agree, his weight of pass isn't 100% no tenacity when he plays defence) good interceptor of the ball but he's not anything close to being adorned on a shirt by a fan - If I saw Gray on someone's Spurs shirt I'd think they just fancy the kid so if it's a young girl wouldn't mind if it was a man...
Not saying he won't be decent one day but I can't believe we spunked 40m on this kid
When you look at some of the players that we've missed out on for a fraction of the price in the championship
Our scouting system is completely broken
When you look at some of the players that we've missed out on for a fraction of the price in the championship
Our scouting system is completely broken
View: https://x.com/thespursexpress/status/1933496217830576539?s=46&t=fbqxNuG9CT4qTaiJx8mBjg
Frank sees Gray as a 6.
I like him more already
Excited by this. Gray underwhelmed in his few midfield starts, but some of that was rust.
If he gets the chance to concentrate on DM, still think he can be very good there. 19 is obviously very young. Maybe we will see a Bergvall-esque improvement this year.
Yup and his time playing across the back 4 should really give him a great foundation to understand where he needs to be as a DM
Could it be that Levy thought the best way to get Archie's brother, who is a striker, was to first bring Archie?
Gray's fee seems like a lot but the profile the club were looking for was an 18 year old English player that was playing for either England U20s or England U21s and Gray fit that perfectly and already had experience of men's football so could contribute at 18.
We needed them to be 18 so they could become club-trained and solve the CT issues long-term so we don't end up in a situation like last season or this upcoming season where you enter a squad of 21 senior players + Austin for Europe. Having a squad of 21 players means you're always going to be short in 1 area because you don't have 2 players per position and means you have put pressure on academy players that don't have experience of men's football aka the likes of Moore/Lankshear to fill those gaps regardless of whether they're ready.
We needed them to be English and in the England U20/U21 squad because our EQP (English player quota) was amongst the lowest in the league. Post-brexit, you get up to 4 slots that enable you to sign promising overseas players based on the % of minutes you give to English players, you also get additional slots for having 3 players representing England and 3 players representing England U21/U20s. We were in danger of losing all 4 of our slots which would have prevented us signing players like Bergvall, Yang and Vuskovic.
If you look at the other players that fit that profile
Lewis Miley - would have cost more, Newcastle prob wouldn't have sold
Nwaneri - Woolwich wouldn't sell
Lewis-Skelly - Woolwich wouldn't sell
Tyler Dibling - possible but had no experience of men's football at the time
Few other England U20 players but most are playing academy level or getting their first loan to L1/Championship, they wouldn't have been able to come in an get the 5th most minutes in a PL side with the versatility to fill in 4-5 positions where the squad needed. Obviously still got a huge amount of developing to do.
Paying the price for underinvestment in the academy that led to a 2-3 year gap in talent coming through as few players were brought in to bolster the level and the academy lost a few promising players for free because other clubs were paying higher academy wages. Club should have balanced it out with first XI ready players instead of Werner/Odobert.
We needed them to be 18 so they could become club-trained and solve the CT issues long-term so we don't end up in a situation like last season or this upcoming season where you enter a squad of 21 senior players + Austin for Europe. Having a squad of 21 players means you're always going to be short in 1 area because you don't have 2 players per position and means you have put pressure on academy players that don't have experience of men's football aka the likes of Moore/Lankshear to fill those gaps regardless of whether they're ready.
We needed them to be English and in the England U20/U21 squad because our EQP (English player quota) was amongst the lowest in the league. Post-brexit, you get up to 4 slots that enable you to sign promising overseas players based on the % of minutes you give to English players, you also get additional slots for having 3 players representing England and 3 players representing England U21/U20s. We were in danger of losing all 4 of our slots which would have prevented us signing players like Bergvall, Yang and Vuskovic.
If you look at the other players that fit that profile
Lewis Miley - would have cost more, Newcastle prob wouldn't have sold
Nwaneri - Woolwich wouldn't sell
Lewis-Skelly - Woolwich wouldn't sell
Tyler Dibling - possible but had no experience of men's football at the time
Few other England U20 players but most are playing academy level or getting their first loan to L1/Championship, they wouldn't have been able to come in an get the 5th most minutes in a PL side with the versatility to fill in 4-5 positions where the squad needed. Obviously still got a huge amount of developing to do.
Paying the price for underinvestment in the academy that led to a 2-3 year gap in talent coming through as few players were brought in to bolster the level and the academy lost a few promising players for free because other clubs were paying higher academy wages. Club should have balanced it out with first XI ready players instead of Werner/Odobert.
Could say this about plenty of players, including Bale after as many games.
I think he's the kind of player who will benefit a lot from more structure and instructions. We shouldn't be expecting huge things from him yet - defenders and defensive midfielders don't tend to emerge until their 20's.
It’s a myth that Bale was poor when he initially joined Spurs. He was actually class in his first half season, that was before injuries and a huge dip in confidence occurred prior to Redknapp taking over.
Gray is a million miles off the talent that Bale was. Frank may rate him but the idea that he will just wave a magic wand and turn him into a serviceable PL 6 is laughable.
You have to ask yourself where Gray was being coached to play under Ange? He first came into the team covering at full back but played the vast majority of his minutes at CB, so was he being coached to play CB right up until our injury issues let up? You have to think so, unlikely he was being coached "out of position" knowing full well we were relying on him at CB for a large period of the season. In that case it's hardly fair to judge him on the few fleeting appearances he got for us at DM just yet, I think we should let him get a full pre-season in under Frank and see what he had planned for him when he wanted him at Brentford. He's young enough to take last season in his stride and continue the development track he was on at Leeds.
Who said he was seen as a generational talent in defensive midfield?
Oh, that’s right nobody, they just made up some complete bullshit to make their crappy clickbait tweet a bit more noticeable.
This is complete bollocks. You could immediately sense and tangibly feel Bale’s star potential. His wand of a left foot and physical brilliance jumped off the screen. He was a bit unlucky at first but such a great physical talent that you knew he’d have the potential to be something.
Gray does nothing at a high level. He does everything at an OK level, but it’s all caveated by “for a 19 year old playing out of position”. He does nothing special. Completely forgettable and not in a good way.
Nah that was in the Athletic and Jay Harris is the journalist closest to Frank.
Brentford wanted to break their transfer record on Gray and had it on the line until we gazumped last min.
You are just wrong about Gray so don’t want to believe it. I’d have thought you were more comfortable being wrong about stuff by now
The absolute stones on this guy to talk about being wrong ..
True, but you have to tick the compare him to Bale box that now seems to be obligatory when discussing the development of any young player at Spurs.
As though anybody will ever repeat that progress. They won’t, trust me.
Haha that’s comedic gold. The man wrong about about absolutely everything related to Spurs. Keep up the humour, it’s all your good for these days.
Kane is a better example, I openly wrote that I thought he was too slow to play up front and should be moved to the #10 role… shows what I know. But again, at least with Kane you saw the ball-striking quality and football brain he had, he just got yanked around with loans and wasn’t physically ready yet. Gray is just… there.