Tottenham: Youngest team in Premier League collectively maturing

Youth, as Spurs found out in the current campaign, is both a blessing and a curse in football. 

Youngest team in the Premier League

It depends on which source you believe, but the Express has Spurs average age pegged at 25.3 while the Telegraph finds Tottenham’s mean age is closer to 26. Regardless of the slight discrepancy, Tottenham are indisputably England’s youngest team in the top flight.

Going with the Express’ calculations, Southampton, Liverpool, Sunderland and Arsenal round out the top five youngest squads.

Josh Onomah, Spurs youngest players, is 19 years old, while Dele Alli, Harry Kane, Eric Dier, Christian Eriksen, Ben Davies, Harry Winks, Vincent Janssen and Kevin Wimmer are all 24 or younger.

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That bodes well for the future as the lion’s share of Spurs most influential players haven’t yet reached their prime.

Whether Spurs can keep this incredibly talented core of young players together is another story entirely.

Michel Vorm, at 33, is the elder statesman on the team.

West Brom are the league’s oldest team with an average age of 29.4. Manchester City, with an average age of 28.4, are the fourth oldest team while there isn’t much to choose between Chelsea and Manchester United, who respectively average 27.2 and 26.8 years old.

With an average age of just over 25, Tottenham are by far the youngest team in the top flight. Spry, energetic and sanguine, Spurs have imposed their youthful will and taken the Premier League by storm over the past two seasons.

Is inexperience an asset or a liability?

But has their comparatively unschooled inexperience temporarily prevented them from fulfilling their goal? Or has it, in fact, induced a fearless bravado, an overachieving aura at the club?

I think you’ll find the answer somewhere in between.

"Helen Keller once famously said that “character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”"

Spurs, after last season’s implosion in the latter stages and their valiant attempt to rein Chelsea in during the current campaign, have now endured their fair share of trial and suffering. Their overall transformation, and improvement, in the respective run-ins is evidence of their soul being collectively strengthened.

The summit of success is close behind.

In comparison to other top teams in Europe, Spurs still aren’t particularly battle tested. Spurs top 13 players have 140 Champions League appearances between them, or 11 per player. Club captain Hugo Lloris, with 34, has the most of any Spurs player. Twenty-eight of those 34 appearances were with Lyon.

Kyle Walker, Rose, Davies, Erik Lamela, Victor Wanyama, Mousa Dembele, Kane and Janssen have 30 total Champions League appearances.

Inexperience, injuries and the house of horrors that is Wembley, cost Spurs in the Champions League. This young, upstart Spurs team were also slightly hampered by inexperience on their travels in the top flight.

Nobody on the team has ever won the Premier League, a fact magnified by a poor run of away results in the lead up to Christmas. Tottenham need someone who has before tasted Premier League glory. But it’s a Catch-22, as Spurs must win the Premier League before they can acquire that invaluable, and intangible, experience.

That is, of course, unless Mauricio Pochettino goes shopping for such a player.

Spurs have been tested

Spurs weren’t expected to win the Premier League this season. The bookies had them pegged as fifth favourites and they far surpassed that billing.

But to come so close to glory is a painful pill to swallow no matter how you spin it. On the upside, the experience this young side will gain in enduring such agonizing defeat cannot be measured in numbers.

Next: Tottenham all but out of title race

Hopefully the bitter taste of defeat is precisely the kind medicine prescribed to soon-to-be Premier League winners. You learn more in defeat than success, the old adage goes.

Let’s hope that adage rings true for Spurs next season.

"Former American baseball player Vern Law once said that “experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.”"

Spurs have been tested. Now comes the time to teach every other Premier League team a lesson.