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Tottenham Ready to Move on From Shayon Harrison?

By Ryan Wrenn

Jul 28, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; Tottenham Hotspur head coach Mauricio Pochettino during training in advance of the 2015 MLS All Star Game at Dick
Jul 28, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; Tottenham Hotspur head coach Mauricio Pochettino during training in advance of the 2015 MLS All Star Game at Dick /
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Late last week news broke that Tottenham were shipping Academy striker Shayon Harrison off to League Two side Yeovil Town. The move seems to call into question the 19-year-old’s future with the club.

Ostensibly this should be a sign of Harrison’s development. It’s clear over the last two years in Tottenham’s youth ranks that the young striker is out-growing the competition.

Last season he scored nine goals in 13 appearances along with three assists per Transfermarkt. In other words, he was involved in a goal roughly once every 95 minutes.

Harrison sustained this pace this season in the revamped Premier League 2 despite suffering injuries, scoring six goals and setting up two assists for a goal participation rate of once every 105 minutes.

To Mauricio Pochettino and others involved in the Academy system, these kinds of results demanded a response. When questioned about the lack of options last season should Harry Kane get injured, Pochettino responded with praise for Harrison and a promotion to the first team.

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Though he didn’t get Premier League minutes — and still hasn’t — Harrison still managed to stay on over the summer, traveling with the club as they played in friendlies in Australia and Norway. He even scored the last of Tottenham’s six goal haul against Inter Milan in late June.

With the arrival of Vincent Janssen though, Harrison’s chances all but evaporated. He started the season back in the under-21 side and then suffered an injury that kept him out of consideration for the EFL Cup matches against Gillingham and Liverpool.

His return to fitness didn’t immediately bring him back into the fold at Spurs however. Instead Tottenham returned to old playbook and sent him out on loan.

Harry Redknapp-era Tottenham used the loan system more or less in place of a under-21 squad. He was counting on the myriad of teams within English football to provide the experience young players needed to come back and contribute to Tottenham.

This all surprisingly worked rather well. Kyle Walker, Danny Rose and Harry Kane all benefited from experience with other clubs. Even if there players occasionally got lost in the shuffle — see: Carroll, Tom — it wasn’t quite the puppy mill clubs like Chelsea tend to become.

Pochettino prefers to keep his youth talent closer to home. Josh Onomah and Harry Winks are both exceptionally promising Academy graduates who have yet to be sent out on loan. Instead, they were, like Harrison, promoted to the first team and given sparing opportunities to impress.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – JANUARY 13: Shayon Harrison of Tottenham Hotspur has his shot at goal blocked by Tosin Adarabioyo of Manchester City during the Premier League 2 match between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur at City Academy on January 13, 2017 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – JANUARY 13: Shayon Harrison of Tottenham Hotspur has his shot at goal blocked by Tosin Adarabioyo of Manchester City during the Premier League 2 match between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur at City Academy on January 13, 2017 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images) /

Thus far Winks is the clearest benefactor of this policy, but Onomah seems set to earn his shots as well. Defenders Cameron Carter-Vickers and Kyle Walker-Peters wait in the wings for their own chance.

It doesn’t alway work out so cleanly. Some of these youngster’s former under-21 teammate followed a different trajectory. Alex Pritchard and Dominic Ball were each permitted to go out on loan over the past couple seasons, to Brentford and Rangers respectively.

Though they generated substantial buzz for their performances, ultimately their time with those other clubs was used to leverage permanent deals. Pritchard ended up with Norwich while Ball went to Rotherdam United. It would hardly be a surprise if Tottenham’s current prominent loanees, Nabil Bentaleb and Clinton Njie, meet the same fate.

That divide is telling, particularly in Harrison’s case. If there was a way to fit him into Tottenham’s current plans in the same way Winks and Onomah and Carter-Vickers fit, then Pochettino would presumably keep hold of him. Instead, he’s being sent off to a fourth division side that won’t do an awful amount to prepare him for the rigors of the Premier League.

Next: Tottenham in Barcelona for Training Session

It seems likely, then, that Harrison’s move is a prelude to an eventual sale. With Tottenham’s squad now including two young strikers as well as a versatile Heung-min Son, there seems little reason to expect Harrison to come back as a member of the first team. Hopefully, he will find more fertile pastures soon enough.