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Tottenham Hotspur Links: Spurs Flying Under Radar

By Alexander Balano

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It’s the afternoon so here are your Tottenham Hotspur related news.

Tomorrow, Tottenham will be looking to get within a single point from a top four spot in the Premier League when Spurs host Aston Villa on Monday night. This season has been a whirlwind for plenty of clubs at the top, middle and bottom of the league table. In Tottenham’s case, they have a golden opportunity to get inside the top four and remain there for as long as Chelsea and Liverpool continue to navigate through their interesting seasons. Let’s get to the afternoon news below.

  • Alex Pritchard tweets a simple message
    • [via Alex Pritchard’s official Twitter account]

"Rise and grind"

The message is simple. It’s what every athlete says to get them back into the flow of things when they’re injured, what they say after a lose, a win or a draw and what they say ahead of the next game. Alex Pritchard’s tweet isn’t necessarily an indication of how his rehab is going following ankle surgery. But he should still be on track to recover by the time January rolls around. From there, it remains to be seen how he’ll be utilized in Mauricio Pochettino’s offense with Christian Eriksen and Heung-Min Son ahead of him.

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If Dele Alli spent a part of his Saturday watching his hometown club, MK Dons, play against Hull City, then Harry Kane would do the same thing but for a different sport and on a different day. Kane, who is a huge NFL fan took some time in his busy schedule to watch the Detroit Lions take on the Kansas City Chiefs at Wembley Stadium in the NFL International Series on Sunday afternoon. During the game, Harry Kane took over the NFL UK’s Twitter account to tweet about the game and provide live updates. It’s not newsworthy but it does show a side that people might not have known about Kane.

The first part of this news is interesting to talk about. The only thing that the media tends to talk about regarding Tottenham is when and if they will finish inside the top four in the Premier League. Spurs are just short of being one of England’s elite clubs along the likes of the Arsenals, Chelseas, Liverpools and Manchester Cities and Uniteds.

It’s not that Tottenham are bad, but they under-perform and fall short of their goals — a top four finish and Champions League berth. So it’s interesting to note, that with Spurs one point away from reaching that goal at the start of November, all the media seems to focus on right now is mostly Chelsea and Liverpool. Of course Mauricio Pochettino doesn’t mind, same with the players, but if it weren’t for an auspicious start for the Blues and the Reds, people would be talking about Spurs this year.

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The second half of London24’s article relates to the amount of youth talent that Pochettino is able to work with. By already having the youngest Premier League squad this season with an average age of 24.7, the Argentine coach talks about why this is all possible.

“It’s important to keep the identity at all clubs and at Tottenham, in this case. A club like Tottenham that invests a lot of money in the academy, and has unbelievable managers in the academy, why not use that?”

It’s true, why shouldn’t Tottenham invest heavily in their youth academy when it’s produced talented players on the first team: Harry Kane, Danny Rose, Kyle Walker, Alex Pritchard, Ryan Mason, Harry Winks, Josh Onomah etc etc.

Mauricio Pochettino’s philosophy for young players gives credence to how clubs should strike a good balance between homegrown talent, signing good players and top players.

“Our philosophy is to give the chance to the youngsters if they deserve to play and show they are capable of playing in the Premier League… Tottenham have the facility to give the chance to the youngsters and we have the facility to bring players in from outside, top players, and the most important thing is to find the right balance.”

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Right now Tottenham, under Mauricio Pochettino and Paul Mitchell’s guidance to scout and promote youth talent to the first team has helped get them to where they are in just a season-and-a-half. The only missing piece now would be to take this philosophy and facility that they have and finally put it all together to win a championship, any kind. Last season they were close to winning the League Cup, so it’s possible, they’re not far off.