Sun 25 July 2021, 12:06
Tottenham HotspurOur Under-18s rounded off a week-long training camp on the east coast with their first outing of pre-season at Ipswich Town on Saturday.
After five days of training and off-field activities in Norfolk, the players headed down to Suffolk to put what they’d learned into practise against a tough Tractor Boys outfit.
Despite an impressive performance that saw us go 2-0 up through Jamie Donley’s penalty and Rio Kyerematen’s cool finish, it was the hosts who ran out 3-2 winners, although Under-18s Coach Stuart Lewis took nothing but positives from the whole exercise.
“The boys have been excellent all week and it’s been a really good learning experience for everyone involved,” he said.
“There were some really good passages of play in the game and many of the things we’d spent time speaking about and working on during the week were evident throughout, with some excellent individual performances on display. Purely from a scoreline perspective, to go 2-0 up and not win the game is disappointing but at this stage of pre-season, the technical and physical level of the players was really pleasing and it left Ryan (Mason, Head of Player Development) and I feeling really excited and optimistic for the next few weeks and months, because we saw some really top work from the players.”
Earlier in the week, the squad spent time training at a local school facility in Norfolk and working with the coaching team to go into detail about what’s required on the pitch. A number of off-field activities also took place including swimming, gym sessions, cookery classes with our Academy Nutritionist and even a trip to the coast, where the players enjoyed a dip in the sea on Thursday. The trip took the place of our usual Under-18 pre-season tour to Belgium, which was not possible this year because of the pandemic.
“Over the course of the week, we worked on lots of technical and tactical elements of the game and spoke about how we want to implement our style of play,” added Stuart. “We had meetings with the squad about what being a Spurs Academy player looks like and spoke about the character that’s needed to be a successful person as well as a footballer. Ryan and I worked hard with them on the pitch, but also off the field the players were able to get a real insight into the expectations around playing for this Club. On Wednesday night we all sat down to watch the first team game and it was great for the lads to see some of the young players who they’ve either played with themselves last season or seen around the Training Centre on the Academy side involved, really driving home the targets that we’re all aiming for. We had some Under-16s with us on the trip too which was a great experience for them, so overall there was a really good energy and positive feeling throughout the week.”
During Saturday’s game, Donley fired us ahead from the spot just before half-time following a handball in the area, with Kyerematen arriving in the six-yard box to convert Jahziah Linton’s left-sided cross seven minutes into the second period after good work in the build-up from Tom Bloxham. The Ipswich goalkeeper was forced into a handful of good saves as we continued to create chances, but the hosts levelled with two goals in as many minutes from Ash Boatswain just beyond the hour mark, before Jack Manly scored the winner on 66 minutes.
Spurs: Maguire (Hayton 46), McKnight, Linton, Turner (Heaps 46), Dorrington, Andiyapan (Bryan-Waugh 46), Torraj, Kyerematen, Williams (Owen 57), Donley, Bloxham. Six Under-16 players also featured off the bench for us in the second half.
