Buy or nurture?

[muttley]

I was thinking the other day that the Spurs fans were pretty unified that our squad wasn't deep enough in the 16/17 season. The natural reaction therefore is to say that we have to increase the squad size with quality senior additions that can compete with the 1st team and take us to a new level.

I then spent Saturday at Hampden Park watching Eric Dier playing for the England senior team and then watched Onomah play in the U20 WC final on Sunday. It then got me thinking what would have happened if they had switched places. They both played the same position for their respective teams. Different levels of opposition, but Dier had a shocker whilst Onomah played a blinder. The biggest difference was that Dier wasn't guilty of over-playing it in midfield and leaving his defence exposed. For all his fantastic play, Onomah definitely made the wrong decision a few times and left his defence exposed. For the rest, he wouldn't have looked out of place in the senior side based on Saturday's showing and England's midfield inability to do things with the football.

So I'm left wondering how much stronger will younger players Janssen, Onomah, Winks, Edwards, N'Koudou, KWP, CCV etc can make us just by their continuous improvement and further experience? When will they be deemed "mature" enough to get as much playing time as a player like Dier does? I'm also thinking that Spurs won't sign a single player this summer that is over 25. Why would they? Our transfer strategy is working. Instead we are touting Ryan Sessegnon, Cenzig Under and other young stars. It would never surprise me if our biggest signings are in the 22-25 age range. For Spurs, there is no such thing as buying the finished article. We can't or won't pay their salaries and transfer fees so let's just get comfortable with our approach.

Personally, I can't wait to see our new signings this summer. They may look under-whelming compared to our peers but I very doubt they will be.

 

[Spursex]

If you're a 'skill' player and you're encouraged to be that type of creative ball player - then you have to accept as a coach and even a fan that you are going to make mistakes.

Too often we try and coach that out of kids too early - as you are probably aware I've been saying that Josh has it in him to make it for years - he still has some way to go - but make it he will, and the last thing I'd want is him being curtailed in his risk-taking the way he clearly was for Spurs, that can be instruction led or just plain simple old fashioned fear.

The only way you get rid of fear and the only way you learn the game properly is playing week in week out - when a player is still developing you've got to be a very brave coach to take those sort of chances when you're in a PL race..

Players who have the basics do generally keep improving until around their peak at 27/28/29 - keeping them on that improvement track can be tremendously difficult.

Out track record in buying the finished article isn't fantastic, and rarely can we afford to - so like you I expect we will stick with our transfer strategy abnd keep playing the transfer risks - which you have to when you're buying tier 3 players.

 

[VitalFootballAdmin]

Thanks muttley, you post has been added to the VS front page :17:

I was thinking the other day that the Spurs fans were pretty unified that our squad wasn't deep enough in the 16/17 season.
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