Many staff at Tottenham Hotspur share one major concern about the academy as the Lilywhites begin showing ruthlessness in the transfer market.
While Spurs have shown a willingness to pay big fees for their targets and smash their wage ceiling, they have also been decisive when it comes to selling players.
That also includes young talents, with Luka Vuskovic, Tynan Thompson, Alfie Devine and Will Lankshear all sealing exits from the club this summer.
While these sales have been financially very beneficial for the Lilywhites in recouping some of the big money they have spent, it has left many at the club with one major concern.
Many at Tottenham are concerned about the lack of pathway from academy to first team
Tottenham’s academy has struggled to produce first-team regulars over the last few years, with Oliver Skipp and Japhet Tanganga being the last two who were fixtures in the senior squad.
That is why the sale of Will Lankshear has not been a popular decision among sections of the fan base.
Journalist George Sessions has now revealed on Last Word on Spurs that there is a feeling of concern in the Hotspur Way academy regarding the pathway from the youth sides to the first-team.
Sessions revealed that this concern is shared by not just the academy players and their parents, but also by the youth coaches at the club.
He said: “I think probably that’s where Spurs want to be where they’ve got an academy that’s regularly producing players. 50% of them will be going and being sold and you know that’ll be going pure profit obviously back into the first team. But actually you know every season you will have one or two come through.
“Mikey Moore is the big hope. You know he’s the one I think everyone feels like will be the Tottenham player. He will be the next, you know, not Harry Kane because he’s a different player to Harry Kane, but he’s going to be the next academy player that’s going to come through the academy and actually make it
at Tottenham.
“There’s a lot of pressure on him to do that because if Mikey can’t make it at Tottenham, then there really are questions. A kid as talented as him and who has got an unbelievable mindset. He’s just gone through a really good growth loan at Rangers where it was very, very hard for him at the start and a lot of kids would have gone back to London with the sort of towel between their legs and gone on loans in a
Championship in January. He stuck it out and ended up being their player of the season basically.
“I’m not sure what will happen with him this summer, but I think long-term Mikey is the one that they really believe is going to be the one to break through.
“But I can’t sit here and lie. There is concern around the academy, in the academy. Academy players are concerned, parents of academy players are concerned, academy coaches are concerned because where is the pathway? There isn’t a pathway. You know, if Will Lankshear is being sold, if Alfie Devine is being sold, if Tynan Thompson is being sold, who’s next?
“I think rival clubs will look at Luca Williams-Barnett sadly and they’ll look at Jun’ai Byfield and they’ll probably be getting in their agents ears and saying, “Well, look, look at the people in front of you. You know, there’s probably going to be a new left winger that gets signed. Xavi and Maddison are in Luca Williams-Barnett’s way. You know, Byfield has got Micky Van de Ven and Van Hecke.
“I think that was probably part of the club allowing Vuskovic to go because they know they’ve got Jun’ai a couple of years behind him. But what Tottenham do need to make sure they do, as much as I can understand why they’ve made some of the decisions they’ve made this summer, they’ve got to make sure there is a pathway still for young players to get into the first team.
“Especially for Mikey, and then behind Mikey, for Luca and Jun’ai next because there is a lot of concern amongst those young players that they’re not going to get the opportunities.”
The Spurs academy is doing what it is supposed to
The job of an academy is not just to produce players for the senior team, but also to generate a profit for the club.
The fact that Tottenham have sold Will Lankshear, Tynan Thompson and Alfie Devine for sizable fees is a huge endorsement of the work that is being done in the academy, with all of those sales going down as pure profit in the club’s books, which is like gold dust in the FFP era.
As the Premier League gets increasingly elite and pulls away from the other leagues due to the higher money it generates, it is going to become increasingly hard for the academies of top English clubs to produce players who can break into the senior side.
What Spurs are doing now – selling these players with a buy-back clause – is arguably a more prudent strategy, particularly if the players themselves want to leave.