Before you read this, you might want to read my article Dilan Markanday… And What It Means (Part 1), as well as Dilan Markanday… And What It Means (Part 1.5).

I would also recommend reading Loan Pathways: The Academy Model, by Jon Mackenzie and Josh Hobbs for Analytics FC.

Caveats:

• I started researching and writing this around three months ago and so some of the details have possibly changed a little.
• Whilst I’m confident that my spreadsheet is at least 95% accurate, there could be a handful of errors or even players missing that would lead to small changes in the subsequent analysis.
• Spurs have tended to not disclose transfer fees. I could have used fees from Transfermarkt but that wouldn’t have filled all of the gaps.
• It was really tricky to make judgements around which leagues are ‘better’ than others when I was trying to rank the best level a player had played at.

Here is the data. Have a look, get your head around it. I wanted to look at the circumstances leading to the player leaving, how many minutes they’d played, etc, as well as how they left. Please comment if you spot any inaccuracies or have any information to add, I’d be very grateful.

Let’s start with some top-level analysis from the 11 academy intakes between 2007/08 and 2017/18. I’m using these because the intakes beyond this do not have many interesting stories to tell yet (except, perhaps the cases Luis Binks and Dennis Cirkin, who both left early in such of first team football — successfully!).

• From the 11 academy intakes between 2007/08 and 2017/18 we have introduced 137 players to our Academy. NB: I was going to phrase this as ‘given scholarships to 137 players’, but I don’t think that that is strictly true, since a handful joined us after the commencement of that intake and were likely via different contract types.
• 10 of those 137 (7.3%) have gone on to play over 1,000 minutes for Spurs’ first team. These are: Ryan Mason, Andros Townsend, Steven Caulker, Tom Carroll, Harry Kane, Nabil Bentaleb, Harry Winks, Kyle Walker-Peters, Japhet Tanganga, Oliver Skipp.
• If we include Marcus Edwards (for whom I do not believe we have received a fee yet, but likely will do in future) and both Luke Amos and Dennis Cirkin, for whom we understand the fees to be around the £1m mark, 12 players (8.8%) have been sold for £1m or more. These are: Ryan Mason, Andros Townsend, Nabil Bentaleb, Kyle Walker-Peters, Steven Caulker, Tom Carroll, Alex Pritchard, Keanan Bennetts, Luke Amos (probably), Josh Onomah, Marcus Edwards (highly likely), and Dennis Cirkin (probably). Dilan Markanday’s fee may possibly rise to over £1m in the future. There is a small caveat here that there may be one or two others, but it’s unlikely.
• 4 players players (2.9%) have been sold for £10m or more. These are: Ryan Mason, Andros Townsend, Nabil Bentaleb and Kyle Walker-Peters. There is a possibility that Marcus Edwards’ 50% sell-on arrangement could result in a future fee of £10m or more. There is also a small possibility that Dilan Markanday’s sell-on arrangement could also result in a future fee that takes his total transfer fee to £10m or more.
• 19 players (13.9%) have played significant minutes in the Premier League, Serie A or Bundesliga. I used my judgement here – i.e. Filip Lesniak (4 minutes) was excluded but Kevin Stewart (580 minutes) was included. Luis Binks (Serie A) would be a 20th player to include here if we were take into account the full range of intakes — he was in the 2018/19 intake.
• A further three players have played significant minutes in the Eredivisie: Ismail Azzaoui, Tomislav Gomelt and Marcus Edwards.
• 13 players (9.5%) have played significant minutes in the Championship; six of those were released and only Amos (possibly) and Markanday (possibly in the future) achieved a fee of £1m. None of them played more than 50 minutes for us.
• 17 players (12.4%) have played significant minutes in League One (of these; nine of those were released. Only Dean Parrett played more than 100 minutes for us).
• Ten (7.3%) players have played significant minutes in League Two (of these, nine were released, and one is still contracted to us (Jamie Bowden), and only Jake Nicholson and Cameron Lancaster (14 and 12 minutes respectively) played for us.
• Four players played in the Scottish Premiership — two released, two sold for nominal fees.
• Two players played in the Scottish Championship — one after being released, and Nathan Oduwa was there on loan and was eventually sold to Olimpija Ljubljana for a small fee.
• There are then players who have played at other decent levels across Europe and beyond, and at least 10 who have played in the National League and below.
• So that means 72 (52.6%) of our academy players have gone on to play in a top five league, the Eredivisie, the Championship, League One, League Two or the Scottish Premiership.
• There are 21 (15.3%) full internationals, including six full England internationals.
• NB: Omari Forson and Noni Madueke both left before joining the Academy as scholars.

Now for some comment.

53% of our academy players having played at those level feels quite low. I have nothing to compare to at other clubs, and I’m sorry to say that I don’t intend on doing this for other clubs — it was difficult enough for the club I’m actually interested in! If anyone knows of any similar analysis for other clubs, please do paste links in the comments. But yes, 53% feels low, though I think it’s improving significantly when considering hit rates of the more recent intakes.

I believe — and this is something I went big on in my initial article — that we have been poor at maximising profit on players we have let go. There are numerous examples of players who have gone on to be worth a lot more than we let them go for. Some examples are: Adam Smith (undisclosed fee, understood to have been small), Ryan Fredericks (undisclosed fee, understood to have been small), William Troost-Ekong (released), Kevin Stewart (released), Milos Veljkovic (£400k), Paul-José Mpoku (undisclosed fee, understood to have been around £350k), Nathan Byrne (released), Jordan Archer (released), Lee Angol (released), Kane Vincent-Young (released), Joe Pritchard (released). We could argue over whether we might have expected to achieve a higher fee for even those sold for the highest price — Kyle Walker-Peters (£12m) springs to mind, a player sold at a fairly low point, who is now worth double what we sold him for.

At the time of their transfers, it might have seemed as though they were worth little, or perhaps their contracts were nearly up, or perhaps they needed a fresh start and the club did not want to retain them against their wishes. My view is that careful management of your best academy prospects should mean that clubs are able to initiate strategic loans that help create value, and offer enough first team opportunities (be they training opportunities, bench places, or actual minutes) that we a) create value and b) keep the players interested enough to renew their contracts. And when I say ‘best academy prospects’, looking at the data we are not talking about high numbers, so this should be manageable.

We should be aiming for a situation where no players complete their scholarship and go on to either leave the game entirely or end up in non-league. That should be a rarity. Unfortunately, we are not there yet. I do, however, believe that a large proportion of those we release for free hold significant value and, with the right loan planning, could have been players we sold, possibly for a future sell-on percentage. This is something we have thought about and, arguably, improved upon in recent years — I think the sales of Sam Shashoua, TJ Eyoma, Jubril Okedina and Armando Shashoua (following loans) speak to this. But we need to do more of it. Why could we not have done this with George Marsh, rather than ending up releasing him? Same question for Jack Roles, Jaden Brown (who was transferred but, as I understand, for a nominal or no fee), Nick Tsaroulla; these were good players who we should have profited from.

We have to think: what is the purpose of our Academy? We invested heavily in the training ground and, of course, that wasn’t solely for the Academy, but it was certainly a part of the motivation. The narrative used to go that if you managed to rake in a combined million quid for your youth players every year, it would pay the running costs — I’d love to know if that’s still true. So what is the purpose? Is it to try to produce a couple of players a year for the first team squad? Is it to generate revenue? Is it to occasionally luck out with a Kane (or even a Skipp or a Winks or a Tanganga)? Or is it all of the above? In all cases, I think we can do quite a bit better.

I’ve got some more thoughts which I’ll likely follow-up with in a few weeks, but for now I wanted to share this piece of research, get any corrections or additional information from readers, as well as your comments on how you think we’re doing.

When we talk about ‘transition seasons’ at football clubs we generally mean that the club has moved from a previous poor performance, generally involving a parting of ways with the coach, to being on the road to better times. This has been a transition season for Spurs but, rather than being on the road to better times, we’ve reached the better times already.

Such is the quality of Antonio Conte, he has allowed our ‘transition season’ to essentially be a transition half-season. Even during the transition he got us winning.

But it’s the transition off the pitch that, for me, has been more important. I have made no secret of the fact that being a Spurs fan has been very difficult for me during the last couple of years. I felt completely disenfranchised and devoid of hope when he was our manager. I could not see any semblance of a workable system and there was nothing to dream on.

Nuno Espírito Santo wasn’t him (good) but he also wasn’t really anything (bad), and it always seemed like such a terrible fit. Fortunately it was a fleeting visit. Antonio Conte’s appointment felt massive because of his coaching ability and his record, but I did worry a little about how I’d find his deliberately abrasive and confrontational approach. It’s amazing how quickly I’ve adjusted to it.

I doubt that he’s ever going to occupy the same space that Mauricio Pochettino does for me — partly because the chances are that we’ll be a quick stop-off on his journey to a Galáctico, that’s how brilliant he is — and partly because I don’t believe that he is quite as invested in the club. Fair enough. But seeing him waving his arms on the touchline to urge support, seeing the way he has us playing, seeing the way that he has made use of some of the previously under-performing talent at his disposal… this is what it’s all about.

We go on and on as fans about what’s better: winning a cup or a top four finish. The truth, at least for me, is that unity is more important than either. If I feel bought into something, if I feel that we’re moving in the right direction, I can forgive almost anything. And I’ve got that back in spades. What is it they constantly say up the road? Trust the process. Except whereas they put blind faith in their long-winded and wasteful process, we have found a slick and efficient one.

So whatever happens today — and hopefully it’s the absolute obliteration of Norwich City Football Club as an entity (no offence, Canaries, I just want us to end on a high) — I want to thank Antonio Conte for bringing the spark back into my relationship with Spurs. I didn’t need handcuffs, role-playing, light spanking, a third party. I just needed direction.

COYS. I love you.

Twitter @TheExtraInch
Facebook TheExtraInch
The Extra Inch Podcast
The Extra Inch – Patreon – Become an xSub!
Or buy us a coffee 🙂

At the end of my article Dilan Markanday… And What It Means (Part 1), I wrote:

This is part one of a two part look at where Spurs are going wrong. I’m quite excited about the piece of analysis that I will be doing for part two, so be sure to look back in a week or so to catch that.

This is part 1.5. Because what I wanted to achieve was a bit more difficult than I thought and I need your help!

I’ve been working on a little project, looking at all of our youth players going back to the 2007/08 intake which was when I started really getting interested in our youth development (that was the youth intake with Mason and Townsend in). Part 2 is going to be some analysis on what I’ve found; I’ve already started thinking about how this will look.

But I am sharing some of the data here, firstly to give you a first glance, and secondly to see if anyone can help fill in outstanding gaps. This leaves this open to people jumping in and using my data to do their own analysis before I’ve even got out of the starting blocks, but so be it.

The reason I’m asking for help is that I know a lot of Spurs fans have old Spurs handbooks, which tended to record the academy intakes in full. So here’s what I’d love: if you have any Spurs handbooks, would you mind checking my lists of academy players from the year in question against what’s in the handbook for that year, and letting me know if I’ve missed any players?

If anyone has the intake years/dates of birth for these two players I’d be really grateful as I’ve not been able to find any information on them:

• Samuel Smith (2011/12 intake I think)
• James Dalton (2007/8 intake I think)

The spreadsheet is here. All data used was available in the public domain.

Please leave me a comment or drop me a note at windy at windycoys dot come if you can add any information! I’d be super-grateful!

I’m not panicking. I’m not panicking because I think we can explain away the last couple of matches. Am I huffing copium? Maybe, but hear me out.

It’s really easy to make sweeping statements about the rotten mentality of the club, the same players letting multiple managers down, how unacceptable it is to lose to lesser teams at home. It’s easy to boo at half-time, to be absolutely sick of the sight of Ben Davies and Harry Winks and even poor Matt Doherty (who has, astonishingly, now made 46 appearances for us). But Ben Davies was rejuvenated and playing genuinely really well in a back three including Eric Dier and Cristian Romero. Harry Winks put in some excellent performances in matches where we actually had possession of the ball. Doherty was even starting to look okay at times. Who are the players that let the previous managers down — Hugo Lloris? Son Heung-min? Harry Kane?

Southampton caught us off-guard. Ralph Hasenhüttl doesn’t do things by halves — it’s all or nothing. Typically they press themselves out of gas as much as they smother opposition teams. They expose themselves defensively in the same way that they expose their opponents. But, in this game they maintained their press, they got let off the hook a couple of times with our counter-attacks failing, and they were clinical when it mattered through James Ward-Prowse’s outstanding and deeply-specific skill not being managed at all well.

And Wolves? Well, I think I’m willing to put this mostly down to Hugo howlers. I realise that, even aside from Lloris’ blunders, we had a ropey first half. And I do think we were outnumbered in midfield until Conte brought on Dejan Kulusevski to play as a ten (and, thus, add another body to the midfield). But I think the second half performance was pretty good. And, had we not had those two comically poor moments in quick succession, I really believe it would have been a different game (albeit tricky against a stubborn Wolves defence).

If you take a step back, the level of performance and the data that those performances have delivered have improved significantly since Antonio Conte stepped in. And I strongly believe that will continue (maybe after the City game, lol). Kane is still under-performing his expected goals, but he has had 31 shots in his last six matches, which is highly encouraging. He is playing very well.

I’m not happy with how the last week has gone. I’m also, if I’m honest, completely taken aback by it — I had these down as two home wins. I was genuinely so adamant that we’d stride towards fourth, with those six points very much included in my thinking. But I don’t think we need to tear anything up and start again, I don’t think top four is off the table (far from it, I still feel pretty confident about our chances) and I definitely don’t think our squad is useless.

I do think, though, that Conte has made some mistakes. I’ve been a little obsessive about my belief that 3-5-2 suits us best (based, mainly, upon Liverpool and Leicester). And I really believe that the continuing selection of Davinson Sánchez has hurt us, previously primarily for his inability to participate effectively in build-up, but in these last two his defending was also particularly poor. My reading of the post-Wolves press conference was that Conte is also coming round to this way of thinking — when asked about Joe Rodon, he said “But in this moment maybe I make mistakes to pick different players maybe. Maybe. My evaluation is to try to put on the pitch the best players at the moment.” I believe that Rodon is significantly better in possession than Sánchez.

Dier’s return should mean that Cuti Romero moves back out to the right centre-back role which should, in turn, help Emerson Royal, who also really struggled against Southampton, but who I generally think is okay. Oliver Skipp should hopefully be back soon but, even if he’s not, I think there are decent enough combinations from Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Rodrigo Bentancur and Harry Winks (and I’m not against Dejan Kulusevski playing in midfield in a 3-5-2).

I’d love to see us switch to 3-5-2. I’d love for Sánchez to only be used in an emergency for the rest of the season. I think everything’s going to be fine. But, if the next three don’t go so well, I’ll pop back in March to apologise for spreading my copium.