Marcus Edwards Set to Train with Tottenham's First Team
Tottenham’s recent infusion of talent off the transfer market has not dissuaded Mauricio Pochettino from his quest to promote from within.
The Hertfordshire Mercury reported on Friday that Pochettino is about to make moves that could allow some of the Tottenham academy’s youth products to get their first minutes with the club.
In recent years the club’s academy has produced several younger players, most notably striker Harry Kane. Pochettino’s arrival to the club only accelerated this trend. The Argentine’s preference for youth — his Tottenham sides are regularly the youngest in the league on matchdays — means that a spot in the first team is achievable for virtually any player talented enough.
The club’s under-21 side spent the past two seasons nurturing a class that increasingly seemed poised for a break through. Josh Onomah, Harry Winks and Cameron Carter-Vickers all enjoyed time spent training with the first team or, in Onomah’s case, actually subbing on or even starting games.
Promising right-back Kyle Walker-Peters has already begun training with the first team so far this season. And now it seems as if Pochettino is ready to promote one of the most scintillating prospects Tottenham’s had in some time.
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Marcus Edwards just signed a new contract with the club this summer that will keep him in north London until 2018. Though only 17-years-old, authorities at the club were anxious to secure his signature, even if it meant promising the youngster minutes in the 2016/17 season.
Such a promise was easy to make. After impressing with the under-21 last season and then again during Tottenham’s pre-season tour of Australia, Edwards has fast tracked himself toward his first shot in the professional game.
When he does get minutes — possibly as soon as Tottenham’s EFL Cup match against Gillingham later this month — he will be the youngest player ever to feature for Pochettino’s Tottenham. Last season the Argentine had no qualms with sliding 19-year-old Dele Alli into a permanent spot in the starting XI. Giving Edwards a shot seems only a natural extension of Pochettino’s coaching philosophy.
“For me it is all about performance,” Pochettino said in regard to the recent call-ups. “If they show me in the training that that they are better than another player, then it is not a problem.”
“You know that I don’t have a problem to play them. I am sure that they will have possibilities to play this season.”
Both Walker-Peters and Edwards will join Onomah, Winks and Carter-Vickers in competing with Tottenham’s more experienced first team options for minutes. The recent additions of Moussa Sissoko and Georges-Kévin N’Koudou might reduce the chances of those players in attacking midfield, but there’s little doubt Pochettino will use them when the time is right.