Are Tottenham turning into the new West Ham / Leeds?
West Ham have an unenviable reputation for being a conveyor belt for young English talent.
Leeds spent a lot of money on good young players who were then auctioned off as the club went down in flames.
Tottenham is bigger than West Ham, and Tottenham is better managed than Leeds was.
But are Tottenham as good as Arsenal in keeping hold of their young talent?
On the surface, this sounds preposterous. Tottenham are a buying club, not a selling club. They’ve effectively transitioned into a top second-tier club in the Premiership, and will stay there for a long time.
However, there are signs that Tottenham will lose some of their brightest young stars in the coming years.
Carrick was the first to go. With Aaron Lennon it’s only a matter of time before the lure of Champions League football takes him away to United or Chelsea. Defoe and Jenas are not ‘that good’ yet, but a couple of years is a long time in football and both could be snapped up by bigger clubs.
And now Tottenham have signed Taarabt from Lens (technically he’s on loan, but the deal should be finalised in summer with Taarabt fast-tracked into the first team) and along with Huddlestone he’ll be part of the new wave of Tottenham players that will be watched closely by Premieship recruiters.
Tottenham are not a selling club, but they’ll find it very hard to hold on to their top talent if the big four come knocking.
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Obviously written by a Spurs supporter !!!
How do you keep a C*nt warm in Winter…..give it a Spurs scarf!
Worried Arsenal fan by any chance?
Only Man U and Chelsea could afford our players I’m afraid. We have bad relations with Chelsea so dont sell to them.
We didn’t even sell Sol Campbell to Man U when had the chance to for £15m to our own detriment and this was when we were fighting relegation at times.
Arsenal have never and will never BUY our top players and Liverpool have never been massive spenders.
Granted we sold Carrick but £18m for him and the emergance of Huddlestone makes that look like brilliant business don’t you think?
What a load of rubbish - just because a club buys for the future doesn’t mean that they will become a feeder club.
West Ham and Leeds would have kept hold of their youngsters too - but were forced to sell because of their financial positions.
I can’t see Spurs ever getting themselves into the same sort of situation, and therefore they will be in the enviable position of choosing who they keep and when it is right to sell ala Michael Carrick!
I’m sorry Mr Bilal, but I can’t really see the point of this piece? Surely *any* club outside of the top four/six/whatever will always be in danger of their better players being lured away to Champs League/better positioned teams?
Well, Carrick and Defoe were hardly “young Tottenham-talent”.
Every team with money can attract young good players, but not all can be the famous plant-school…
Forever blowing bubbles!
What a pointless and somewhat misguided piece….
Any team outside the big 3 in the prem, will always be selling their most talented players to the bigger and better sides - this is business.
Tottenham are indeed more successful than West Ham at present, but West Hams very existence was maintained through selling some of their best players to fund stadium builds, training ground improvements and alike. Accept this as football nowadays, you have got to balance the books.
who realy cares how great spurs are if they where that good how come they lost to reading, bolton, everton,liverpool home and away, got hammered by the gunners, i mean that game must have been so hard to take in, as the gunners didnt even field a strong team, Spurs give two years and ya be in the championship,
Mark……wishful thinking
mark your a dick splash! give it 2 years and wel would have broken in2 the top 4! with the squad we av its a matter of time, like everybody has said were not a selling club and dan levy will fight tooth and nail 2 keep dawson, hudd, lennon etc! championship lol u fukin idiot
Mark. An Arsenal fan per chance?? Good result against Sheffield United by the way.
so mark losing to Sheff Utd must of been enjoyable?
Mark, You are clearly a complete village bred idiot. If you are genuinely intereted to take part in an objective forum, try to think before tapping those keys. Also go back to school and take some spelling lessons along with English grammar. Nobody cares about your little jibe (You can look that up in a dictionary - that’s a book with lots of words in it) The Mighty Spurs are so far away from relegation which if you were an informed invididual I would already expect you to know. And your comments regarding who we have lost to this season are also a strong source of amusement, I seem to remember recently losing to Liverpool after a 12 game winning streak at the lane and the only thing that cheered me up was when the late result came in and I found out the Glorious Arse were turned over by none other than Sheffield Utd!!!! FYI Ahmed, I think that todays article is completely pointless, I actually read one you wrote the other day and thought that was much improved from your site. Lets try to be realistic and talk about topics that are actually worthy of the time that we’ll spend discussing them please. Happy New Year - COYS - Lillywhite Forever!
Your’e forgetting that Spurs didn’t actually bring those players up through their youth system like west ham did. The new west ham? west ham’s reputation for nurturing talent is certainly not in doubt. Spurs are more like the new bolton, buying a load of foreigners on big wages.
easy guys it was just a thought that popped into my head. Good points by most of you
Since when have spurs bought as many foreigners as Bolton, Spurs pratically have half the english players in the Prem
ROBA5H…need some glasses?
Robinson, Dawson, King, Lennon, Jenas, Huddelstone, Defoe, Davenport, Gardner…all Foreign?? You just ruined the point you made before that about youth systems.
The young players at Spurs are all on long contracts, this means that teams have to pay mega bucks to buy. Look at Carrick £18mill! If bigger clubs want to give us that kind of wonga then who are we to turn them down? We can use that money to either a) buy the new lennons or huddlestones from the lower leagues or b) buy somone decent from the continent like Ghaly or Zokora.
Either way its how we play the transfer game that counts and with Martin Jol and Comolli doing the business spot on at the moment Spurs fans have little reason to complain and rivals have every reason to envy us. For once every transfer window that comes along fills me with confidence in the Spurs staff.
Just a small point - this is a serious football forum for people who can discuss football rationally without resorting to playground jibes. Could all the little kids take their big mouths elsewhere. Ta.
Ahmed, as per usual - a discussion-provoking piece and certainly one way of looking at things.
I must admit, a lot of Spurs fans will be worried about the likelihood of losing Tom Huddlestone and Aaron Lennon to the ‘big-guns’. Not only the Prem top 4 - but even those such as Barca, Real, Inter etc.
I must admit, I was surprised when Carrick made the move to United. And a little disappointed with Carrick himself, but reconciled myself to the fact that is how it’s going to be…
However as per what a few others say here. Everyone outside the top four has to worry about that… and as you go down the food chain the worry becomes more pronounced. Wigan lost one of their best assets in Chimbonda, who to ? Well… us…
I only hope that we are able to break into the Champions League inner circle at some point and we are able to convince these youngsters that staying with us is the best option - a real challenge at the best of times.
We are certainly buying for the future and we’re buying a few established performers to help us along the way. (Where ROBA5H gets that we’re buying ‘loads’ of foreigners on big wages - I have no idea).
We can only hope that the ‘conveyor belt’ of talent that we’re bringing in, is enough to sustain Tottenham’s improvement and steady rise up the Premiership table from year to year… currently I think we stumbled a little without Carrick and with the bedding in of a number of new players - but they hopefully have settled / will settle soon and we continue our improvement
Strange article. Tottenham are really in no way similar to West Ham and Leeds. Whereas West Ham and Leeds brought the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Lampard, Joe Cole, Kewell, Woodgate, Defoe etc. through their youth system, Ledley King is the only one of Spurs’ young players who is actually a product of their academy. Spurs have bought young English players recently, but it hardly makes them a ‘conveyor belt’, does it?
the comments and the article itself is a waste of webspace. A bunch of fools who have no idea!
Chelsea are the onlt team that would be able to lure with money players away but even the crooked russian is realising he is gettin “mugged”.
Arsenal and sad for you thicko supporters as the real Arse supporters already know have NOOOO money to spend. Their investors backed the stadium build on the strength of CL qualification over the next ten years judging by the fact that Arsenal had achieved this in the previous ten years.
However, with a shaky start to the season and continued misfiring this is sending a rippling effect around the money men and so NO further money will be spent unless utterly neccessary and in no such way of affording the likes of Lennon £20 Million Carrick just under £20 mill
Dawson King £15- 20 Million Huddlestone — priceless.
So who exactly are totenham going to displace in the top 4 then dreamers?
Judas H Priest what the hell are u talkin bout maine
1 True Spurs cannot compete in financial terms with the top 4,but hell this is one very prudent and efficient club when it comes to matters money! for a club that has under acheived for the last 15 years its still a brand that stands.
2 This club has decided under the ledershp of Dan Levi that the only way it can compete with the big boys is in futures and identify the best young talent available (by the way is mainly English and Britsh talent which i am bloody proud of) and invest in the future,simular to Manu 13 years ago with the likes of Gigs,Scholes,Neville,Butt ect.
So even if a player doesn’t make the grade he can still be sold on even at a profit my boy.
Tottenham Tottenham no one can stopenham!!!!!!!!!!
Its gonna take a while but watch this space this club is gonna rock!!!!!!!!
Spurs is a selling club. Carrick forced Spurs to sell him to utd by not signing a contract and threatened to leave for nowt. Chelsea is a selling club too, they keep offloading talent, Duff, Gallas, Gudjonsen, Players have the power and will make Spurs a selling club as and when they want.
Steve,
I think you need to look back in order to look forward. The current Top 4 are by no means the same as the top 4 of years gone by. If this is the case why is it so ludicrous to suppose that if the top 4 have changed in the past why they should not change again? Look at Chelsea - 10 years ago they were no-where - why is it so crazy to suppose that another billionnaire might come along and eclipse Abravovitch’s spending?
I’m of the belief that it is impossible to maintain a top 4 position indefinitely - that there will always be competition for the top 4 places from the top 8 clubs and that sooner or later one of the current top 4 of Chelsea, ManU, Liverpool and Arsenal will lose their spot for a few years.
To answer your question it’s Arsenal.
Matt,
How do you define academy?
Defoe was poached from Charlton.
Kewell is obviously not a yorkshireman- so i dont think he can be classed as ‘home-grown’ being an aussie.
Same with woodgate, stolen from Tee-Side.
So i think your point dosnt really say anything. And by the way the likes of Huddlestone have actually played for the spurs acadamey side.
An odd article, and, frankly, some even odder comments. I don’t know what your definition of a “selling” club is Jimjimmeny, but it’s clearly different to everyone else’s. How anyone can describe Chelsea as a selling club boggles the mind.
Spurs aren’t the next anyone, we’re just Spurs. We’ve never been a selling club, because we’ve always had money. Despite underachieving for about 20 years now, the loyalty and passion of the fanbase sells out every game, and we’re never forced to sell anyone for financial reasons. Carrick went because he wanted to and because the money offered was far more than he was worth. It was an offer we couldn’t refuse. With hindsight it was fantastic business, because it gave Huddlestone a chance to prove himself. What odds on him replacing Carrick in the England squad within a year or two?
The argument that we might lose our best players to the top 4 is slightly facetious. Acquiring talent of the likes of Huddlestone, Lennon and Chimbonda is our attempt to break into the top 4. If it doesn’t work, they’ll move on. If it does, they’ll stay. That’s football. Once we’re in the Champions League and challenging for the league, we won’t lose anyone. We just have to get there first, and that’s the gamble we’re taking. If we didn’t take it, what kind of pathetic, unambitious club would we be? West Ham?
Spurs have never been a selling club and never will be, within the next 5 years i believe spurs will be on a par with liverpool and arsenal if not suoperior to them. Spurs have never had problems kjeeping hold of their best players, with three exceptions (campbell, carrick and klinsmann) we only usually get rid of players who are suplus to requirements. Carrick only went because united made a silly bid, it would take £30million before spurs ewould even contemplate selling lennon!
I think the answer to the original question is “Yes”, not from the point of view of being a selling club (although clearly we are if Levy thinks the price is right) but more from the results point of view, one week beating Chelsea and the next losing to Reading, struggling to beat Southend but going well in the EUFA cup…….it’s just how West Ham used to be (current situation excepted)….and as soon as I accepted this I found it so much easier to lower my expectations and actually accept that we will do well to finish mid-table and maybe sneak a cup although I don’t think we have enough consistency or belief in the team to win a final. Maybe in the future things will change but with the current squad and set-up I think we have a few good games to look forward to and a mid-table finish, just like West Ham.
Carrick: cost Spurs 2.75m, sold two years later to Man U for 18.6m.
Simply good business, not selling for the sake of it.
Blanchflower, The article talks about weather or not spurs could hold on to their young tallent. Clearly they cant, they sold Carrick. Player pressure (from carrick) dictated this, any of Spurs young, grown-elsewhere, tallent can refuse to sign a new contract and leave for nothing. Also Chelsea are having to sell the players they have accumulated because these players wanted to move and get regular football. (Gallas forced the issue). My point is all clubs are selling clubs and since bosman the players will always dictate this.
Sam Fields, Youre on a different planet! Are not even close to Liverpool or Arsenal. They both spanked you. Also Your chairman sells instead of hanging on to the talent (Carrick). How well have you done since selling him? Good business? yeah, like selling he best talent english football ever had…Gazza. Well done on that one.
This is ridiculous. Lennon going for the lure of champions league football. My arse. Spurs will be there soon. No one should be stupid enough to move to Chelsea!! They don’t play good players when their staring them in the face!
I hope the guy who originally wrote the article realises he is talking about football!! Cos all i can see is a bunch of silly predictions that are about as likely to happen as arsenal fielding more than 3 english players in a game!!!
What a pointless article. In the wonderful new world where the Champions League is everything and is almost a closed club, a player at a club not in the CL may move to one that is. Big surprise. However, Tottenham are the only team outside the CL who could break into it. Then the boot will be on the other foot. THFC are creating a squad capable of getting into and staying in the CL. They are doing this by buying the best young talent and tying them to long contracts. If a club want to pay ridiculous money for one of our players (e.g. Carrick) and we have ready made replacements (e.g. Huddlestone) then we may sell. However the club is so well run that it doesn’t have to. When we sort out our ground the club will prove what we already know - that we are bigger than Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool(Man U are sadly untouchable).
Its actually a good article. I am a huge Spurs fan but can see the problem for Spurs as well as all premiership clubs, they are having problems keeping hold of their players that have improved over the last year because most players would get a signing on fee as part of their contract plus a huge hike in wages to move, also the agents get a huge cut and they tend to listen to their agents, the clubs can’t win!!!!
Look at Fulham, they buy a player for peanuts, turn them into a great player and then are forced to sell because a big clug comes a knocking, sad but a fact of football and NO CLUB gets away from it not even Arsenal / Chelsea or Man U!!!
That’ll be a new five and a half year deal for Lennon then. So much for failing to keep our young talent…
its a business buy/sell make money. were going in the right direction, Berbatov excellent signing
Cunt.
West ham get the players under the age of 15. That is having an academy.
Tottenham buy players between 20-24 and then, people think they have a good youth system, think at the team minus Ledley King all from elsewhere.
Arsenal buy foreign players aged 15-17 when good things are expected then get credit WHY?
only west ham have a proper ACADEMY, NUTH SED