Too Daring to Do? Tottenham's Tragic Graduate Scheme

Too Daring to Do? Tottenham's Tragic Graduate Scheme

It is a well-known fact that each year, the fate of a school, college or university relies almost entirely upon the number of graduates it produces. Fail to meet the annual quota, and you come under increased scrutiny. Consistently fail to meet the quota and, well, they get shut down.

If Tottenham Hotspur were a university, they would have been shut down by the government years ago, no questions asked. Fans look at the other Premier League teams, and their list of youth graduates is impressive: Chelsea boast half a dozen in the last five years alone, while the likes of Man City, Man United and Arsenal have also seen their focus on youth recruitment be rewarded in recent years.

Tottenham’s record, by contrast, is frighteningly poor - since Harry Winks made his debut in 2014, only two Spurs youth prospects have managed to make more than 30 appearances for the senior team, these being Oliver Skipp and Japhet Tanganga.

This is a staggering statistic. A Chelsea list for comparison:
Nathan Aké
Andreas Christensen
Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Tammy Abraham
Callum Hudson-Odoi
Reece James
Fikayo Tomori
Mason Mount
Conor Gallagher
Armando Broja
Trevoh Chalobah
Levi Colwill
Tyrique George https://t.co/B6wnZzqonh

— Rob (@journalism_rp) December 22, 2025

For context, 13 have managed this number of games for Chelsea in the same amount of time. For further context, these two now play for Championship duo Leicester and Sheffield United, respectively.

Where on earth has it gone wrong for Spurs? Their youth facilities are meant to be some of the best in the world - so why aren’t they producing?

The Ones That Got Away

Well, to say that the Spurs academy has not produced any players of note would be disingenuous. After all, it birthed the greatest English striker of all time in Harry Kane, the man on whom so many of the country's World Cup hopes rest this upcoming summer.

Harry Kane scores his 60th goal for club and country in 2025 🍻 pic.twitter.com/DZ9h0c4vZw

— B/R Football (@brfootball) December 21, 2025

Though none can better Kane as a graduate, there are still plenty of high-quality players that the Tottenham hierarchy have seen come and go: Marcus Edwards, who had success in Portugal before moving to Burnley; Troy Parrott, who is tearing it up for both AZ Alkmaar and Ireland; and Noni Madueke, now of Arsenal, have all passed through, and the Spurs staff never saw fit to sign a single one of them.

Those are just the most notable names: Brentford’s Paris Meghoma, Sunderland’s Denis Cirkin, West Ham’s Kyle Walker-Peters, Celtic’s Cameron Carter-Vickers, and the list goes on.

So the question is not why the Tottenham academy isn’t producing high-quality players, far from it. Instead, the question becomes, “Why don’t Tottenham keep any of them?”

Late Bloomers

That is a much trickier question to answer without having an informant on the inside. Clearly, the Spurs talent scouts set the bar extremely high, and although many of the players listed above now play for top clubs, it took a while for them to get going in their careers.

Troy Parrott is on fire. 🔥

The AZ Alkmaar striker scored again this weekend, bringing his tally over the 20-goal mark this season. 👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/fla0MRn0mP

— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) December 22, 2025

Troy Parrott scored 33 goals across five different loan spells before finally being shown the door, and as soon as that happened, he blossomed into an elite striker capable of putting any Eredivisie defence to the sword.

The same goes for Madueke - moving to the Dutch top flight permanently, his game was allowed to develop much more quickly in the knowledge that he wouldn’t simply be torn away from the club at the end of the season; such is the nature of loan spells.

Cameron Carter-Vickers takes the cake for me - he spent six consecutive seasons in the Championship on loan, each time with a different club. Spending time at Sheffield United, Ipswich Town, Swansea City, Stoke City, Luton Town and AFC Bournemouth, his skills, style, and attitude were shaped much more by his time away from Tottenham than with the club.

WHAT A STRIKE from Cameron Carter-Vickers! 😱pic.twitter.com/RFxFvNqaVn

— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) April 12, 2025

Now a starting centre-back for Scotland’s biggest team, there is a clear pattern here - it is only when Tottenham’s young stars leave the club that they actually start to shine. Call it late blooming if you will, but it seems that the youth coaches in North London lack something that stars of the future need in order to become viable candidates for the first team.

What Do Tottenham Need to Change?

Patience. Patience is the key word here. Too often have the Spurs hierarchy waited a couple of seasons to see an uptick in a young player’s performance, become impatient, and sold him while his potential kept his value relatively high.

There needs to be a more detailed, and much more closely followed development plan that allows these young talents to evolve, learn and grow without the overbearing pressure of, more often than not, being sold if they are deemed not up to scratch so early on in their careers.

Tottenham have a number of promising youngsters on their books right now, chief amongst them being Mikey Moore, who played 19 times for them last season, and scored on Tottenham’s run to the Europa League trophy, their first piece of silverware since 2008.

The kid looks like the real deal and at the start of the season was sent to Rangers in Scotland in a bid to further his development. However, as is such a familiar tale with Spurs youth graduates, Moore has faltered, accruing just four goal contributions in 21 games for a Rangers side that sits a dismal fourth.

Scoring his first goal in style 💫

Brilliant from 17-year-old Mikey Moore 👏 pic.twitter.com/GDJKRYggNs

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) January 31, 2025

Dane Scarlett, Will Lankshear and Maeson King also look like top prospects, but by now, even Spurs fans don’t believe they will ever be good enough for the Premier League side.

This is a fundamental problem, and ultimately, it rests with management - they need to alter something, anything, to try and get some different results out of their academy.

Academy players are the lifeblood of football clubs - a seriously talented prospect, such as Chelsea’s Reece James or Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka, has the potential to lead the squad for a decade or more, and their long-term affiliation with the club means that most of the time, these graduates are ready-made leaders, prepared to captain the side at a moment’s notice.

Not to mention that if they need to sell, youth graduates represent raw profit, having invested no money into bringing them to the club. Tottenham are missing out on all of this, and it is high time they did something about it.