No more world-class players please Spurs...

By Spoony
July 31 2005

I strongly feel that with the amount of good young players currently at Spurs we could have a very good team if they are "brought through" properly.

Having players on our books like Routledge, Ziegler, Huddlestone, Kelly, Ifil, Dawson, Lennon bodes very for the future. OK it could take a few years for the squad to mature - but in order for these kids to develop they need to be playing a reasonable amount of games. This happened last year with Ziegler & Kelly in particular making great progress.

This change of emphasis from buying names to buying potential was something that Arnescum put into effect, and I would hope that it would continue after his departure. For that reason I would be concerned if we start buying too many players along the lines of Davids as it would mean a return to the old values that served Spurs so poorly during much of the past decade.

I cannot argue that Davids is a better player than say Huddlestone at the moment, but the risk is that two years down the line Davids moves on & Huddlestone has not particularly progressed as he’s had the square root of bug ger all first team action. The likely knock on effect of this would be Spurs feel they need to bring in another “quality” replacement for Davids & Huddlestone eventually leaves the club due to lack of opportunities.

Someone like Owen would be different in the sense that he’s still in his prime and could be considered a direct replacement for (say) Keane.

It’s a tricky balance to strike and one that I hope Levy is sussed enough to try and achieve. However, there was something about the desperation to announce the signing of Davids prematurely that worried me that the long term building ethos instilled under Arnesen may have left the club with the greedy bas tard.

The odd big name signing is great & you need a healthy mix of experience and youth in order to help in the development of the kids at the club. However, my concern is that the fans (& Levy) are so dazzled by the prospect of having a (once) World-class player at the club that they overlook the issue of what’s in the long term best interests of the club.

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