Spurs Youth 2020/21

  • The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...

    Get involved!

Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports

It's odd because I've been quite impressed with his general play, and at L1 he normally looks one of the better athletes on the field. Wouldn't be losing all hope in him yet, though obviously the lack of goals would dent what I consider his peak potential to be.
Just looked up H's stats at Orient during his 1st loan.
He scored 5 in 7 when he joined but then failed to score in his last 10 games.
TP is starting games, seems to be playing well and is getting valuable experience.
 


Working hard, might have been luckier in some moves. If not brought down in box might well have scored

I think another loan inevitable, but some bits to work with and still only 19. Championship, Bundesliga or where though

Thoughts ?


He's obviously a good young player and it's a huge shame we didn't loan him to a League One club at the start of the season.

I think another League One loan would be smart next season.
 
He's obviously a good young player and it's a huge shame we didn't loan him to a League One club at the start of the season.

I think another League One loan would be smart next season.

Tricky call, but I think if he scores a few goals in the last dozen or 14 games of season, I think a championship loan with a full preseason with them is the right way to go next season (season start off slowly), but if he's not scoring League 1 is probably the only way to go.
 


Working hard, might have been luckier in some moves. If not brought down in box might well have scored

I think another loan inevitable, but some bits to work with and still only 19. Championship, Bundesliga or where though

Thoughts ?


Doesn't really look like he's playing up top there, definitely a bit deeper. Some excellent moments there, and his arrival has seemed to conincide with an upturn in results for Ipswich.

He shouldn't be judged purely on goals scored but overall contribution and in that regard he's doing well. It's six months until next season starts and he could develop a lot in that time. If we have a manager next season who's good at developing youth players there could still be a role for him at Spurs rather than going on another loan.
 
Doesn't really look like he's playing up top there, definitely a bit deeper. Some excellent moments there, and his arrival has seemed to conincide with an upturn in results for Ipswich.

He shouldn't be judged purely on goals scored but overall contribution and in that regard he's doing well. It's six months until next season starts and he could develop a lot in that time. If we have a manager next season who's good at developing youth players there could still be a role for him at Spurs rather than going on another loan.

He's been playing as a no 10, but if anything deeper than many no 10's go.

Think he would struggle at Spurs next season to get more than a few sub appearances, whoever is manager, particularly since Alfie Devine is only 17 in August, too young to be loaned out, so will need those sub appearances playing only slightly deeper as a no 8.
 
Footballers in the modern era immediately down tools once they have an inkling that the gaffer ain't going to be there next season. An oggie on 2 mins, no Ade, I really enjoyed that day out

That Liverpool game was the famous Vertonghen body language one wasn't it?

Where he was just relaxing pre-game and then went off "injured" after 20 odd minutes. With many people thinking he just didn't fancy it.

How far we came within just 2 years of that.
 
Makes me a tad sad reading this, though we had some amazing talent at Tottenham, most of it being used at other Clubs at a very high level (Utd, Liverpool and Fulham). If you watch how Fulham play it has Tottenham fingerprints all over it, whilst watching us resembles fucking Stoke!

Football development though is largely cyclical, so it's only after a period of time ar the fruits of that work realised and I guess I'm a lot closer to that "old" group because it coincided with a time where I retired from work for a couple of years, so I would spend a lot of time at Hotspur Way and even travelling to a fair number of away games too. I haven't been to Hotspur Way for about 3yrs now, so I've lost that connection.

I had no idea that Burch and Gardiner had also left us, hadn't seen their faces from pictures out of the club but blimey! Fingers remain crossed that the team in place following all these highly talented departures as good as those that left.





Parker, Wells and the Tottenham influence on Fulham’s coaching staff

Ask Tottenham about the success of their academy, and the diamonds they have unearthed and polished over the past decade, and they would likely point to the man leading their attack and wearing the armband for his country. Harry Kane, the poster boy for their academy graduates, leads a strong production line that has continued to bring through players at the elite level. Fulham know this only too well themselves through Josh Onomah, who played a vital role in helping the team to promotion last season and remains in the first-team picture.

But on Thursday evening, when Jose Mourinho takes Tottenham and Kane to Craven Cottage, those of a Spurs persuasion would be justified in pointing to the home team’s dugout too.

Fulham’s head coach, Scott Parker, and his assistant, Matt Wells, both featured in varying capacities for the north Londoners as players — Parker in the first team and for a time as captain, and Wells as an academy player from the age of nine through to 20. But they were also both schooled as coaches at Hotspur Way. The same goes for Fulham’s goalkeeping coach Rob Burch and first-team match analyst, Jonathan Hill, as well as former Spurs staffers Charlie Moore, now lead physical performance coach at Fulham, and first-team coach Nathan Gardiner, who previously spent 14 years at Tottenham.

For Fulham’s backroom team, Tottenham marked the start of a journey. Parker’s first full-time coaching role saw him take charge of Spurs’ under-18s side before he was brought back to Fulham by Slavisa Jokanovic in July 2018. The former England captain ended his career as a player at Craven Cottage but this move marked a step up on the coaching ladder. When presented with the opportunity to take charge of the first team on a permanent basis, after initially taking over in an interim capacity following Claudio Ranieri’s sacking two years ago, his first thought was to bring in the staff with whom he had struck up a bond at Tottenham. Namely Burch, Hill and Wells.

“As soon as I met Matt it was (an) instant (connection),” said Parker of his No 2 earlier this year. “I’d say we’re quite similar. It’s a very intense, very open relationship. We have both got big opinions on certain things.

“We were on the same path, have got the same vision on football and how we want to see it played. We go into the same amount of detail and he’s been a massive help with me. He’s incredible at what he does. I’m grateful that he’s part of the team. We both work well together. I feel it’s a good match.”

Wells’ journey is a curious one for the way it almost mirrors that of his grandfather, the Tottenham legend Cliff Jones, who spent 10 years at White Hart Lane before joining Fulham for two seasons from 1968. “He’s been an amazing support for me throughout my career, always willing to give me advice and tell me stories,” Wells told the Fulham website upon moving to SW6. “He’s got an unbelievable long-term memory, he can tell me every half-time team talk that Bill Nicholson delivered. Bill was obviously an incredible manager, and it’s great to have that in the family. My grandad has told me numerous times what a great club Fulham is. He loved it here, he just wishes he’d played a little bit better he said!”

Unlike his grandfather, Wells did not make the move from Tottenham to Fulham as a player. After a career blighted by injuries, he decided to focus on coaching and completed his UEFA B Licence by the age of 20. He then worked at Stevenage and the Nike Academy, before returning to Tottenham to work alongside the late Ugo Ehiogu at under-23 level. It was then that he first linked up with Parker, assisting him with Tottenham’s under-18s during the 2017-18 season.

Wells had worked together with Burch and Hill for a number of years, alongside Gardiner and Moore. Burch, like Wells, had spent time in the Tottenham academy as a player but later returned after retirement as head of academy goalkeepers. Hill, meanwhile, had spent more than two years at Tottenham as an analyst after previous jobs at Blackburn and Crystal Palace. The group joined Stuart Gray and Alastair Harris, who were already on the Fulham staff, to form part of the initial core of Parker’s backroom team.

In October last year, the Tottenham contingent grew once again. Gardiner and Moore joined the group; the former worked as technical co-ordinator and head of sports science at Tottenham, working closely with Mauricio Pochettino and later Jose Mourinho. The latter, Moore, spent three years as an academy physical development coach before progressing to work with the first team. Funnily enough, he first joined Tottenham after a year-long internship at Fulham.

“Tottenham was a big period (for me),” added Parker. “It wasn’t planned that way. But I spent a year there at under-18s, I met Matt Wells who is an incredible coach, along with Burchy, and formulated a team here of people. Nathan Gardiner and Charlie Moore have had massive experience around big, big players at the highest level. The team that we’ve got together along with the other guys that were here before in Aly and Stu and people like that, it was good for me in that sense.

“It was good for me on the field, because I learned a lot. I could learn exactly what I needed to do and where I needed to improve.”

Parker first met that group while working at Spurs and it was during that under-18 season that they realised there was an alignment when it came to their footballing beliefs. Those close to the group say they all shared a similar process-driven mentality, based on structures that function regardless of whether the team win, lose or draw. Their attributes and personalities are felt to complement each other too, with Wells understood to be very detailed tactically and in training, Burch is a character who, like fitness coach Harris, brings energy as goalkeeper coach and when assisting with set pieces. Hill delivers the clear analytical messages to the players, while Parker, who is also incredibly detailed on the tactical front, is the motivational voice and leader.

The bond between the group is now understood to be more of a friendship than just colleagues, no surprise as they are said to spend more time together than with their partners. That sense has only been enhanced by the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Naturally, the Fulham staff share key influences, and none are more prominent than John McDermott. McDermott spent 15 years at Tottenham before leaving to join the Football Association as assistant technical director last year. He oversaw the progression of England internationals like Kane, Danny Rose, Steven Caulker, Andros Townsend, Jake Livermore, Harry Winks and Ryan Mason. But McDermott had a coaching influence too, with Liverpool’s academy manager Alex Inglethorpe one such example, and Manchester United’s Kieran McKenna another.

It was McDermott who spotted Parker’s coaching potential and pushed him to pursue his coaching badges while still playing for Tottenham, which Parker undertook alongside Brad Friedel, and then he appointed him to coach the club’s under-18s four years ago. Likewise, McDermott held a strong influence in guiding Wells onto his own coaching path, and again with Burch and Moore too.

He is felt to have had a huge influence on their careers but also on the way they approach management. McDermott was a strong character at Tottenham and seen as relentlessly hardworking. His dedication towards bettering every player on an individual basis, such as with Kane who initially struggled in his younger years, is understood to underpin much of the work Parker and his team now do at Fulham. There is a concerted focus on improving players through individual work, something that runs through training and applies regardless of whether they are in the starting XI or not.

“He had a massive influence,” said Parker of McDermott. “He had a massive influence on everyone who is with me now. Matt Wells, Rob Burch, even Nathan Gardiner to a certain extent. When I was there, he was the one who pushed me into coaching. I then went back into the club after I retired. He was a constant driver. He’s been incredible for all of us in terms of nurturing, in terms of everything.”

Fast forward to today and any residual Spurs loyalties are long put out of mind in the Fulham camp, with top-flight survival on the line. Parker’s side have rallied on the field after a slow start and are now within touching distance of safety. The fixtures though are now set to become tougher, with Liverpool and Manchester City following Tottenham’s visit this week.

Three points is all the motivation Fulham need right now, but for Parker and his backroom team, facing Tottenham, the club where their journey first began together, will always have a special edge to it. “We spent a large part of our professional years at that football club,” added Parker. “We all have fond memories.”
 
Fulham do look like a well coached team. They look as if they know what they are doing, as we did under Poch. When watching United i’m Not sure there is a plan. Usually waiting for Fernandez to conjure up some magic. They have only scored one goal in 7 games against the normal top 6 and that was a pen against us. Fernandes has done nothing against these teams.
 
Makes me a tad sad reading this, though we had some amazing talent at Tottenham, most of it being used at other Clubs at a very high level (Utd, Liverpool and Fulham). If you watch how Fulham play it has Tottenham fingerprints all over it, whilst watching us resembles fucking Stoke!

Football development though is largely cyclical, so it's only after a period of time ar the fruits of that work realised and I guess I'm a lot closer to that "old" group because it coincided with a time where I retired from work for a couple of years, so I would spend a lot of time at Hotspur Way and even travelling to a fair number of away games too. I haven't been to Hotspur Way for about 3yrs now, so I've lost that connection.

I had no idea that Burch and Gardiner had also left us, hadn't seen their faces from pictures out of the club but blimey! Fingers remain crossed that the team in place following all these highly talented departures as good as those that left.





Parker, Wells and the Tottenham influence on Fulham’s coaching staff

Ask Tottenham about the success of their academy, and the diamonds they have unearthed and polished over the past decade, and they would likely point to the man leading their attack and wearing the armband for his country. Harry Kane, the poster boy for their academy graduates, leads a strong production line that has continued to bring through players at the elite level. Fulham know this only too well themselves through Josh Onomah, who played a vital role in helping the team to promotion last season and remains in the first-team picture.

But on Thursday evening, when Jose Mourinho takes Tottenham and Kane to Craven Cottage, those of a Spurs persuasion would be justified in pointing to the home team’s dugout too.

Fulham’s head coach, Scott Parker, and his assistant, Matt Wells, both featured in varying capacities for the north Londoners as players — Parker in the first team and for a time as captain, and Wells as an academy player from the age of nine through to 20. But they were also both schooled as coaches at Hotspur Way. The same goes for Fulham’s goalkeeping coach Rob Burch and first-team match analyst, Jonathan Hill, as well as former Spurs staffers Charlie Moore, now lead physical performance coach at Fulham, and first-team coach Nathan Gardiner, who previously spent 14 years at Tottenham.

For Fulham’s backroom team, Tottenham marked the start of a journey. Parker’s first full-time coaching role saw him take charge of Spurs’ under-18s side before he was brought back to Fulham by Slavisa Jokanovic in July 2018. The former England captain ended his career as a player at Craven Cottage but this move marked a step up on the coaching ladder. When presented with the opportunity to take charge of the first team on a permanent basis, after initially taking over in an interim capacity following Claudio Ranieri’s sacking two years ago, his first thought was to bring in the staff with whom he had struck up a bond at Tottenham. Namely Burch, Hill and Wells.

“As soon as I met Matt it was (an) instant (connection),” said Parker of his No 2 earlier this year. “I’d say we’re quite similar. It’s a very intense, very open relationship. We have both got big opinions on certain things.

“We were on the same path, have got the same vision on football and how we want to see it played. We go into the same amount of detail and he’s been a massive help with me. He’s incredible at what he does. I’m grateful that he’s part of the team. We both work well together. I feel it’s a good match.”

Wells’ journey is a curious one for the way it almost mirrors that of his grandfather, the Tottenham legend Cliff Jones, who spent 10 years at White Hart Lane before joining Fulham for two seasons from 1968. “He’s been an amazing support for me throughout my career, always willing to give me advice and tell me stories,” Wells told the Fulham website upon moving to SW6. “He’s got an unbelievable long-term memory, he can tell me every half-time team talk that Bill Nicholson delivered. Bill was obviously an incredible manager, and it’s great to have that in the family. My grandad has told me numerous times what a great club Fulham is. He loved it here, he just wishes he’d played a little bit better he said!”

Unlike his grandfather, Wells did not make the move from Tottenham to Fulham as a player. After a career blighted by injuries, he decided to focus on coaching and completed his UEFA B Licence by the age of 20. He then worked at Stevenage and the Nike Academy, before returning to Tottenham to work alongside the late Ugo Ehiogu at under-23 level. It was then that he first linked up with Parker, assisting him with Tottenham’s under-18s during the 2017-18 season.

Wells had worked together with Burch and Hill for a number of years, alongside Gardiner and Moore. Burch, like Wells, had spent time in the Tottenham academy as a player but later returned after retirement as head of academy goalkeepers. Hill, meanwhile, had spent more than two years at Tottenham as an analyst after previous jobs at Blackburn and Crystal Palace. The group joined Stuart Gray and Alastair Harris, who were already on the Fulham staff, to form part of the initial core of Parker’s backroom team.

In October last year, the Tottenham contingent grew once again. Gardiner and Moore joined the group; the former worked as technical co-ordinator and head of sports science at Tottenham, working closely with Mauricio Pochettino and later Jose Mourinho. The latter, Moore, spent three years as an academy physical development coach before progressing to work with the first team. Funnily enough, he first joined Tottenham after a year-long internship at Fulham.

“Tottenham was a big period (for me),” added Parker. “It wasn’t planned that way. But I spent a year there at under-18s, I met Matt Wells who is an incredible coach, along with Burchy, and formulated a team here of people. Nathan Gardiner and Charlie Moore have had massive experience around big, big players at the highest level. The team that we’ve got together along with the other guys that were here before in Aly and Stu and people like that, it was good for me in that sense.

“It was good for me on the field, because I learned a lot. I could learn exactly what I needed to do and where I needed to improve.”

Parker first met that group while working at Spurs and it was during that under-18 season that they realised there was an alignment when it came to their footballing beliefs. Those close to the group say they all shared a similar process-driven mentality, based on structures that function regardless of whether the team win, lose or draw. Their attributes and personalities are felt to complement each other too, with Wells understood to be very detailed tactically and in training, Burch is a character who, like fitness coach Harris, brings energy as goalkeeper coach and when assisting with set pieces. Hill delivers the clear analytical messages to the players, while Parker, who is also incredibly detailed on the tactical front, is the motivational voice and leader.

The bond between the group is now understood to be more of a friendship than just colleagues, no surprise as they are said to spend more time together than with their partners. That sense has only been enhanced by the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Naturally, the Fulham staff share key influences, and none are more prominent than John McDermott. McDermott spent 15 years at Tottenham before leaving to join the Football Association as assistant technical director last year. He oversaw the progression of England internationals like Kane, Danny Rose, Steven Caulker, Andros Townsend, Jake Livermore, Harry Winks and Ryan Mason. But McDermott had a coaching influence too, with Liverpool’s academy manager Alex Inglethorpe one such example, and Manchester United’s Kieran McKenna another.

It was McDermott who spotted Parker’s coaching potential and pushed him to pursue his coaching badges while still playing for Tottenham, which Parker undertook alongside Brad Friedel, and then he appointed him to coach the club’s under-18s four years ago. Likewise, McDermott held a strong influence in guiding Wells onto his own coaching path, and again with Burch and Moore too.

He is felt to have had a huge influence on their careers but also on the way they approach management. McDermott was a strong character at Tottenham and seen as relentlessly hardworking. His dedication towards bettering every player on an individual basis, such as with Kane who initially struggled in his younger years, is understood to underpin much of the work Parker and his team now do at Fulham. There is a concerted focus on improving players through individual work, something that runs through training and applies regardless of whether they are in the starting XI or not.

“He had a massive influence,” said Parker of McDermott. “He had a massive influence on everyone who is with me now. Matt Wells, Rob Burch, even Nathan Gardiner to a certain extent. When I was there, he was the one who pushed me into coaching. I then went back into the club after I retired. He was a constant driver. He’s been incredible for all of us in terms of nurturing, in terms of everything.”

Fast forward to today and any residual Spurs loyalties are long put out of mind in the Fulham camp, with top-flight survival on the line. Parker’s side have rallied on the field after a slow start and are now within touching distance of safety. The fixtures though are now set to become tougher, with Liverpool and Manchester City following Tottenham’s visit this week.

Three points is all the motivation Fulham need right now, but for Parker and his backroom team, facing Tottenham, the club where their journey first began together, will always have a special edge to it. “We spent a large part of our professional years at that football club,” added Parker. “We all have fond memories.”

Wells was a huge and unexpected loss - I think he had only one season in charge of u18's and made them virtually unbeatable....... the u18's might have been good players but the coaching influence really was significant.

Difficult to judge the others as we fans cannot really see it, but I'd certainly like t see Wells back in youth development..... and maybe Parker is just in training for a return.
 
Wells was a huge and unexpected loss - I think he had only one season in charge of u18's and made them virtually unbeatable....... the u18's might have been good players but the coaching influence really was significant.

Difficult to judge the others as we fans cannot really see it, but I'd certainly like t see Wells back in youth development..... and maybe Parker is just in training for a return.
100% agree regarding Wells.

When I watch Fulham I really like how they play, Tonnenham DNA (to which I'm attributing to McDermott who was the overseer if you will) runs through what they are doing.

What was interesting from the article was the bits about Parker, I think all of us can relate to his motivational abilities (there are some great stories about his team talks as a Player) but not so much is made of his managerial abilities etc...
 
Skippy does 90 as Norwich win and go 10 points clear
CCV starts away to Bristol City. Steve Sess also starts (on loan to City.)
Clarke on bench for Stoke.
 
Back
Top Bottom