• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

John McDermott - new Technical Director

Echo @milo - academy needed a shake-up.

But more in terms of fundamental principles than staff. I remember McDermott explaining, years ago, that our strategy was to look for players that other London clubs weren't picking up because they were too small/not quick enough, but that had good mentalities and could be coached.

Tom Carroll, Alex Pritchard, Ryan Mason, Steven Caulker, Marcus Edwards, Harry Winks, Harry Kane, Kyle Walker-Peters, Oliver Skipp. None of those players were as strong or as fast as their contemporaries, but most of them had good mentalities. It's a common trend on the players that have broken through for us, with Townsend and now perhaps Tanganga perhaps being among the few exceptions.

The thing is though, our status has changed, and our needs have changed. We don't need to defer to Arsenal and Chelsea in the race for London's best talent, nor do we need to necessarily focus on the strategy that McDermott/Inglethorpe laid out.

And given that the physical demands of the Premier League have now skyrocketed past what they used to be, even as recently as 2012 - I think a more broad-based recruitment strategy could do us good. Do I think we should drop the focus on a good mentality? Absolutely not. But we're now big enough that we don't have to choose, I would argue. We can aim for the best of London's talent, rather than look at the players left behind (although we should still keep an eye out for a Kane, of course).

Best of luck to McDermott in his future career - but I think this needn't necessarily be a bad thing for us.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Echo @milo - academy needed a shake-up.

But more in terms of fundamental principles than staff. I remember McDermott explaining, years ago, that our strategy was to look for players that other London clubs weren't picking up because they were too small/not quick enough, but that had good mentalities and could be coached.

Tom Carroll, Alex Pritchard, Ryan Mason, Steven Caulker, Marcus Edwards, Harry Winks, Harry Kane, Kyle Walker-Peters, Oliver Skipp. None of those players were as strong or as fast as their contemporaries, but most of them had good mentalities. It's a common trend on the players that have broken through for us, with Townsend and now perhaps Tanganga perhaps being among the few exceptions.

The thing is though, our status has changed, and our needs have changed. We don't need to defer to Arsenal and Chelsea in the race for London's best talent, nor do we need to necessarily focus on the strategy that McDermott/Inglethorpe laid out.

And given that the physical demands of the Premier League have now skyrocketed past what they used to be, even as recently as 2012 - I think a more broad-based recruitment strategy could do us good. Do I think we should drop the focus on a good meteorology? Absolutely not. But we're now big enough that we don't have to choose, I would argue. We can aim for the best of London's talent, rather than look at the players left behind (although we should still keep an eye out for a Kane, of course).

Best of luck to McDermott in his future career - but I think this needn't necessarily be a bad thing for us.
Click to expand...

You think the physical side has increased?
id argue the biggest focus still has to be on skill

When you look at Chelsea’s youth set up it was very very predictable and borderline racist stereo typing .... big black lads for holding midfield, fast black lads for wide positions... small lads can play CM and pull the strings... and a big lad as as a target man
They trained those teams to death to play a certain way and it’s why so few developed when stepping up... think Solanke as a classic or Mancienne or McCreachran

Their players coming through now are IMO decent player but not as good as the hype, other than Gilmour who is class and it’s why they brought him. He is small, not scared of doing some physical stuff but it’s technically great
 
metalgear said:
this was a big one. same as losing arnesen.
turnover in levy's admin team is quite bad when you string all those together.
Click to expand...

I think that you'd find the same at a lot of clubs. Good people are always going to get poached by richer clubs. Hopefully that will happen less now but GHod knows what months without any football will do for our finances.
 
milo said:
I think that you'd find the same at a lot of clubs. Good people are always going to get poached by richer clubs. Hopefully that will happen less now but GHod knows what months without any football will do for our finances.
Click to expand...

It’s also natural for people who want to advance their career to need to move to do so. Alex Inglethorpe is an example of this - took on a more senior role at Liverpool if I remember. Also Kieran McKenna who went to Utd (?). Companies often lose good employees because there is no obvious upward trajectory for them. Sometimes you have to move out to move up.
 
milo said:
I think that the academy has needed a little bit of a shake up for a couple of seasons, so this may not be a bad thing.
Click to expand...
In isolation this is a bad thing. John is renowned as being the best in the country, the FA have been trying to get him for years.

One thing this could do though is make it easier to bring in Jose’s friend from Lille
 
Last edited:
DubaiSpur said:
Echo @milo - academy needed a shake-up.

But more in terms of fundamental principles than staff. I remember McDermott explaining, years ago, that our strategy was to look for players that other London clubs weren't picking up because they were too small/not quick enough, but that had good mentalities and could be coached.

Tom Carroll, Alex Pritchard, Ryan Mason, Steven Caulker, Marcus Edwards, Harry Winks, Harry Kane, Kyle Walker-Peters, Oliver Skipp. None of those players were as strong or as fast as their contemporaries, but most of them had good mentalities. It's a common trend on the players that have broken through for us, with Townsend and now perhaps Tanganga perhaps being among the few exceptions.

The thing is though, our status has changed, and our needs have changed. We don't need to defer to Arsenal and Chelsea in the race for London's best talent, nor do we need to necessarily focus on the strategy that McDermott/Inglethorpe laid out.

And given that the physical demands of the Premier League have now skyrocketed past what they used to be, even as recently as 2012 - I think a more broad-based recruitment strategy could do us good. Do I think we should drop the focus on a good meteorology? Absolutely not. But we're now big enough that we don't have to choose, I would argue. We can aim for the best of London's talent, rather than look at the players left behind (although we should still keep an eye out for a Kane, of course).

Best of luck to McDermott in his future career - but I think this needn't necessarily be a bad thing for us.
Click to expand...
That’s not quite true Dubai. Spurs would still compete with Chelsea and Arsenal for the top, young, local players but also wouldn’t rule out smaller players as some clubs did. John didn’t only want to concentrate on smaller, slower players, he just knew that there is alwys a place in the game for skilful players.

As well as those players you listed (and Caulker was a county 400 metre champion by the way) there were many, many who were strong and fast throughout our academy teams.

it will be very difficult for us to replace John at Spurs. I would imagine we’ll split the role instead and bring in a DoF along with a new academy head yo work under him.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back