What if we had bought more players as some wanted who else would have been left out? A new LWB or Cb would have replaced Davies who covers 2 positions. But what about a new winger or midfielder. The academy simply has not being producing top class players in the past since Kane. Winks and Skipp were the best that played and how many wanted them to be still here? We could have kept Skipp just for Europa but I cannot recall anyone complaining when he was sold.
Poch had a policy of not loaning players out or giving hem minutes in the first team in the correct position for them - about the only exception to that was Winks , and Walker-Peters played about 6 times in 3 seasons with 2 MOTM performances yet was hardly used and therefore never developed hence his exit to Southampton for the sake of his career. We could do with a club trained (ie not taking up an unused squad place) RB/LB as cover for those positions now .....
And the lack of pathway to first team is why Madueke (£35m+ to Chelsea) our u16 captain declined a scholarship at Spurs to join a club with the first team opportunities. And sadly he wasn;t the only top youngster we lost.
It takes at least 5 years to develop a player through the academy - and probably 50% of our academy join between ages of 8 to age 12 - which is why we are still suffering from the Poch era with a lack of youth part developed for later managers to use (worthwhile remembering that at the start of Poch's reign he sold many of he youngsters he had 'inherited' from previous managers development such as Townsend, Carroll, Veljkovic, Pritchard and a number of others, raising £100m to spend on Sissoko and other experienced players he wanted ..... but left successor managers no part developed academy youngsters,
Mourhino was surprisingly good for youth - sent Skipp on his season loan to Norwich, gave Devine and Scarlett (and a few others) their first team debuts - but was only at Spurs for 18 months and really needed to make may changes to Spurs youth organisation (later changed by Paritici a few years later).
Conte was a disaster for Spurs youth - classic stories being his reduced to field Skipp and Sarr as CM's v AC Milan due to injuries, yet despite being hailed ss MOTM, never played for him afterwards and that he regularly broke up youth training sessions with no notice to use the youngsters as ball boys and traffic cones. Not surprisingly enthusiasm and hope was at an all time low by the time Conte left.
Paratici made a lot of organisational and policy type changes to Spurs youth - for example raising academy player wages to same level as most clubs (except Man City and Chelsea), one of the reasons why we lost 2 of our best prospects 2 years ago, and the changes allowed us to keep hold of Mikey Moore who was much admired by a few top clubs - and that has continued under Lange. Ange has a number of youngsters coming through, after a barren period, and a huge opportunity to help develop them - albeit as always not very player is good enough or is a good fit for Ange.
Skipp was injured in his 2nd last game playing for Norwich and has never reached the heights he did playing for Spurs youth or Norwich since, almost certainly not helped by Conte ignoring him for 2 seasons. Probably right fir his own career to move on, and IMO by 2025/26 several other Spurs youth will be taking his Club Trained squad place - whether that will be Devine, Lankshear or who else is up to Ange
