The Tottenham Hotspur academy has statistically been one of the worst across the Premier League for producing first-team players recently.
There is plenty of young talent in the Spurs academy right now, with Mikey Moore being tipped for a big future at Tottenham.
There is also excitement at Hotspur Way about Luca Williams-Barnett, who has been tearing up youth football for the last few years and was handed his debut by Thomas Frank in a Carabao Cup clash back in September.
However, the one thing that will worry Spurs fans about the duo’s development is the poor record that the North London club have in transitioning young talents to the first-team set up.
Tottenham’s academy is not producing enough first-team players
The Telegraph’s Matt Law has now dug up the numbers and revealed that the Lilywhites fare very poorly compared to their rivals when it comes to academy players becoming first-team fixtures.
He points to the example of Arsenal, where Hale End products such as Bukayo Saka, Myles Lewis-Skelly, and Ethan Nwaneri are key first-team players.
In contrast, Law reveals that just three Tottenham academy graduates have made 30 league appearances or more since 2012, the year Kane and Andros Townsend made their League debuts.
Those are Ryan Mason, Harry Winks, and Harry Skipp, while Japhet Tanganga and Kyle Walker-Peters have made 27 and 12 appearances, respectively.
It is revealed that Tottenham had the fifth-lowest percentage of minutes given to homegrown players (1.3) in the Premier League last season.
Spurs are one of just four clubs, along with Burnley, Brentford and Everton, yet to give a single minute of league action to a homegrown product this term.
Spurs insider claims academy was not prioritised by Daniel Levy
Law reveals that the Tottenham academy’s low output has been a source of frustration at the club for a long time.
One club source told the journalist that the decisions made by former chairman Daniel Levy ended up de-prioritising a pathway from the academy to the first-team.
The source is quoted as saying: “Daniel talked a good game about the academy, but he seemed to think he could build Hotspur Way and the players would just magically appear. The scouting and recruitment was behind Tottenham’s rivals, and the investment just wasn’t there in terms of wages that young players could get elsewhere.
“The appointments of José Mourinho, Nuno [Espírito Santo] and Antonio Conte set the club back years in terms of the academy. Jose and Antonio were given the brief of winning as quickly as possible, so it was understandable that they weren’t really focused on the future or the academy.
“Jose was asked to show he could give a pathway to young players, and he picked out Dane Scarlett, but there was a feeling it was to show people he was trying.”