FLATTERY tends to be overriding emotion Troy Parrott feels when he's compared to Harry Kane or Robbie Keane but the striker he ought to avoid similarities with is Anthony Stokes.
The comparisons are natural given their backstories. Both were precocious talents catapulted from the Irish underage scene - Stokes choosing Woolwich, Parrott Tottenham.
Calls for fast-tracking into the senior Ireland scene dominated their late teens as well despite various hiccups at club level.
Each were afforded a nibble of first-team exposure in North London before the familiar path of hardening up on the loan circuit was mapped out by their overlords.
Falkirk did for Stokes in 2006 what MK Dons provided to Parrott last season – the habitat of a shallower pond to extend their arms and leave ripples in their slipstream.
Where they differ is the approach of their parent club when the crunch came. Arsene Wenger chose to cut Stokes loose to Roy Keane's Sunderland six months short of his 20th birthday, albeit for a respectable fee of £2m.
Spurs could have easily commanded that range of payment from a suitor for Parrott had they chosen this week to offload the 20-year-old but chose to stick with a project they've been investing in for six years.
A three-year contract extension and a loan move to Championship club Preston North End was the combination desired by the Dubliner, yet the faith will only be justified if he upgrades his form from League One level.
While the career of Stokes was wasted away, scrambling around Iran, Greece, Turkey, the onus is on Parrott to thrive.
By his own admission, the last Championship experience proved a disappointment for him. Millwall seemed a readymade stopover, only he couldn't find the net in 14 appearances.
"Sometimes things just don't fall for a player," said Lions boss Gary Rowett 18 months ago, as he agreed to Parrott rerouting into League One with Ipswich Town. "I'm sure it didn't work out how he wanted, we wanted or Tottenham wanted but now he drops down a level and tries to get more game time."
The change of scene wasn't particularly fruitful either and it took his third attempt, at promotion-chasing Dons, for the prowess of Parrott to be unlocked.
"People always said there were going to be ups and downs and I always thought maybe there are for other people," he reflected in April, nearing the end of a campaign that yielded 10 goals.
"Growing up, I didn't have the best of everything, not the best of clothes. I had everything I needed and my mum's been really good, but I like nice things.
"I've worked pretty hard to get to where I've got to and if I want to have those things, I'll have those things. That doesn't mean I'm not going to give my all when I'm playing football, or be thinking about other things when playing football. That stuff just doesn't come into it."
"It's not one big thing that's changed. Just tweaking little things, like if I'm not in the team, not getting down and tossing off training a bit because I'm not playing. Making sure I'm training in the best way I can."
It's as if he's heeding Jose Mourinho's warnings ringing in his ears. Tough love is the approach the manager who handed Parrott his Spurs debut adopts. And the synopsis he ventilated in March 2020 after his graduate missed in an EFL Cup shoot-out defeat to Norwich has aged well.
"The problem is not his experience – it's his 30 minutes," the Special One surmised of Parrott's cameo.
"Now people can see that he has to work a lot so don't think that Parrott is the second Harry Kane because he's just a young kid that needs to work."
And how he has dedicated himself to his trade. Parrott didn't broadcast his plan of utilising the off-season to bulk up at the Mykonos Performance training camp when he was signing off on the most successful window of his international career. Three starts in four of the Nations League games, replete with a debut competitive goal, might have tempted him to a lads holiday in Ibiza but it was kettle-bells and it was weights and bench-presses in the sun, rather than cocktails, that consumed his time. " If I had the mindset I have now back then I might have got more minutes than I did," is his take on wising up.
Renowned fitness fanatic Antonio Conte wouldn't tolerate anything less. He saw for himself the benefits of Troy going Greek a fortnight ago in Korea when Parrott outlasted seasoned team-mates in the endurance tests. Once he was convinced attitude and application were apparent in equal measure, the next phase of commitment by the club was sanctioned.
Cynics could crib that the contract renewal merely removes the risk of Spurs losing their asset for free next summer but that's not the motivation. The penny has dropped for Parrott in sufficient time to make him worthy of club loyalty. Before him this season is the platform to ensure he's veering further away from Stokes syndrome and settling into a pathway mastered by the likes of Keane and Kane.
John Fallon
