Tottenham Hotspur have had one recent success from the academy, and you might have heard of him. He goes by the name of Harry Kane. Tottenham’s all time record goalscorer in the Premier League with 213 goals. Aside from that though, not many class products have come through the Tottenham academy in recent years. Harry Winks and Oliver Skipp have been products from the academy, as well as Japhet Tanganga, but Winks finds himself at Leicester, Skipp a bench player at best for Tottenham and Tanganga is on loan at Millwall – safe to say these players have underwhelmed.
However, Tottenham U21’s find themselves top of the PL2 after 12 games, 11 wins and 1 draw – and that draw coming against 2nd placed West Ham. There is a real understanding between the front players. Jude Soonsup-Bell, Yago Santiago, Will Lankshear and Jamie Donley all pulling their weight with the latter as the main creative architect. Donley has 17 assists in 19 appearances, including 4 of those coming against Fleetwood at the weekend – assisting Will Lankshear on 3 occasions, and assisting Yago Santiago for the final goal of the game. Spurs U21’s won 6-0 showing their authority at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Donley has made a handful of appearances off the bench for Tottenham, and has shown maturity in his cameos.
Will Lankshear has 11 goals in 11 PL2 matches, Soonsup-Bell has 8 in 12 games – but with 4 assists, and Santiago has 7 in 10 – also with 4 assists. All 4 of these, as well as a defence containing Alfie Dorrington, and Ashley Phillips at times – both bright young centre back prospects in their own rights and the U21’s feel full to the brim with potential first team talent, and winning the U21 PL, known as PL2, will be a confidence boost and an experience of silverware for them – to be able to show a part of that winners mentality.
The U18’s also have some potential future first team starts, in Mikey Moore, Tyrese Hall and Callum Olusesi. Moore with 20 goals and 13 assists in 18 appearances for club and country, which are seriously impressive numbers. With the eye test, these 3 stand out in particular for the U18 side and were integral in winning U17 and U18 cups last season.
On top of all of these potential academy stars, Spurs still have highly rated Luka Vuskovic and Lucas Bergvall to join the club. The Croatian is on loan from Hajduk Split in Poland, and the Swede is joining Tottenham in the summer from Djurgardens.
Alfie Devine is another notable name, who is on loan at Plymouth Argyle. I will write a separate article about him.
With all of these players showing levels of promise, it is down to Ange Postecoglou to integrate them into the first team when they are ready, and hopefully they can prove their worth and drag next generation Tottenham to a new level in the future.