đźšą Ashley Phillips - Player Thread | Vital Football

đźšą Ashley Phillips - Player Thread

muttley

muttley

Alert Team
So the club have this morning announced the signing of Phillips.

In their words…..

We are delighted to announce the signing of Ashley Phillips from Blackburn Rovers.

The centre-back has signed a deal with the Club that will run until 2028.

Ashley, 18, started his youth career at National League North side Curzon Ashton before joining Blackburn as a 12-year-old in 2017. The defender quickly progressed through the Rovers academy, featuring regularly for the Under-18s aged just 15 and making his Under-23s debut the following season.

In 2021/22, he went on to make 11 appearances in Premier League 2 and spent most of the campaign training with the first team squad, making the bench for their FA Cup Third Round tie at Wigan Athletic in January, 2022.

Ashley’s first team debut came in a Carabao Cup Fourth Round win over Hartlepool United in August, 2022 – becoming the fourth youngest player in Blackburn’s history at 17 years and 45 days – and made his Championship debut against West Bromwich Albion a few days later.

Must admit, for me this is another great move for Spurs. My philosophy on squad management is buy for the first team now and at the same buy for the future. In Phillips case this is the latter, especially with our current defensive ranks so bloated. We just have to get them shifted.

Interestingly, Phillips is eligible to play for either England or Wales. He is labelled as having “unlimited potential” and was thrown into a tough level of football as a 17-year-old.

Anyway, this is yet another progressive signing for the club who clearly need to make space for these young guys to find a path for the first team. We have also seen Dorrington looking good at the same age and same position in our U21 side.

Welcome Ashley
 
I always have a dilemma with these kids. To RD's point, put him in the 1st team and you protect his body through that 18 to 21 year old cycle. It will be mostly training with some very technically gifted players. Overplay him on loan and we could see injuries down the line like we've seen with Sess, Dele and others. The flipside is how do you improve if you're never on the pitch?

We'll know on the 1st September how many of our deadwood we've managed to shift. Spurs are deluded if they don't start considering any offers for our senior players who have been pretty mediocre. Other than Romero, I would listen to any offer for one of our centre halves.
 
TQ2Spurs said:
Let's wait and see if this changes under Ange. I think in Phillips case I would like to see him play regularly with Dorrington in PL2 to develop a partnership for the future. They do get to play against EFL teams in the cup competition and could feature as subs in the early cup games in the first team.
Click to expand...
A season playing alongside each other in the PL2 with the intention of giving both a handful of 1st team games next season would be ideal.
 
Good to see a bit of reasonable priced aqusition for the future at 3 mil, I don't see a loss, can only echo TQ's post, to use him in early Cup comps...
 

great interview with Athletic (some extracts):​


theathletic.com

'I’ve taken bits from Romero and Van de Ven and tried to integrate it into my game'

Ashley Phillips is gaining valuable experience in Plymouth's fight for survival as he plots a path to Ange Postecoglou's Spurs team
theathletic.com theathletic.com

Ashley Phillips does not walk towards new challenges, he sprints at them.

It is a mindset that saw him make his senior debut for Blackburn Rovers in 2022 at the age of 17, sign for Tottenham Hotspur a year later and head out on loan to Plymouth Argyle in January.




“I didn’t expect my debut to come as quickly as it did,” Phillips told The Athletic as part of the EFL’s Youth Development Week. “I was probably around 16 when I thought I had a chance because the Blackburn coaches started to integrate me with the under-21s squad.

“Physically, I was mature so that helped me make the transition into the first team. Blackburn had a good tradition of trusting youth — players like Phil Jones, Grant Hanley, Adam Wharton.

Phillips’ debut under former Blackburn manager Jon Dahl Tomasson made him one of 26 EFL players handed a first professional appearance in the Carabao Cup last season and one of 161 young players handed a debut by a Championship, League One or League Two club.
After joining Blackburn from Curzon Ashton, the sixth-tier club, in 2017 before signing his first Rovers’ contract on professional terms in 2022, his 14 senior appearances helped make him the latest academy graduate sold for good money at Ewood Park. Spurs activated his £2million ($2.5m) release clause last summer.

Phillips believes Blackburn laid the perfect platform for him to take the next step — and this desire to develop also contributed to his decision to join Plymouth in January.
“I needed some football. Going from under-21s football to the men’s game is completely different, especially in the Championship,” he said. “It’s one of the toughest leagues in the world, especially if you look at results on a Saturday. It was about me getting regular minutes, which is the only way you’re going to get experience as a footballer. Plymouth have given me a foundation.


“You learn different things from different clubs. What I learned at Spurs, I couldn’t learn at Blackburn and vice versa. You take the different environments and integrate them into your game. You’ve got different centre-backs like Dom Hyam, Dan Ayala and Hayden Carter that I could learn from at Blackburn. At Spurs, I had Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, and I’ve taken pieces from them and tried to integrate it into my game.”


https://theathletic.com/5320660/202...ation-stoke-huddersfield-sheffield-wednesday/
Phillips and fellow Spurs loanee Alfie Devine are among 195 players on loan from Premier League sides in the EFL this season. Heading to Devon for the second half of the season has seen Phillips trusted with 14 appearances for the club. Ending the season by securing safety would cap off a positive few months for the teenager.


“I found the transition (from Blackburn to Spurs) hard because it’s a completely different game to the Championship technically and physically,” he says. “I hope from this loan that I can gain trust from the Spurs coaches so I can push to be starting now and again, maybe in cup competitions. I can only thank Plymouth for letting me come down here and get minutes regularly.
 
Looking forward to seeing Ashley in our shirt. Perhaps next season, although I can see the logic of him getting another loan, hopefully in a team that play a back four.

Makes you wonder when Romero starts to get the attention of the big Spanish speaking sides. We need Ashley ready to take over at RCB.
 
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