Les Ferdinand: This is why emerging stars should not move to Tottenham
By Emma Sanders
Les Ferdinand claims youngsters are better off staying with the academy at Queens Park Rangers rather than moving to other London clubs such as Tottenham.
The QPR director of football says the players in the Rangers’ academy have a better chance of breaking into the first team rather than with their London rivals.
Tottenham have produced a number of talented youngsters in recent seasons and Chelsea have become one of the leading Premier League clubs for attracting youth.
“We have to have a mechanism where playing for QPR is available to our youngsters,” said Ferdinand, as reported by Get West London.
“One thing we should have above Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham is you have a better chance of playing for QPR’s first team than you do at Chelsea.”
Harry Kane, Tom Carroll, Nabil Bentaleb, Ryan Mason, Josh Onomah, Harry Winks, Marcus Edwards and Cameron Carter-Vickers have all made breakthroughs into the Tottenham first team in recent seasons.
Kane in particular has gone on to become one of the Premier League’s most successful players and is one of the Spurs’ main stars after picking up the Golden Boot during the 2015-16 season.
The last major academy success from QPR was Raheem Sterling who joined Liverpool in his teenage years before going onto to achieve first team success at Anfield and more recently at Manchester City.
Ferdinand took over as director of football at QPR in February 2015 after spending eight years with the club as a player before joining Tottenham in 1997 for six years.
He has often voiced his opinion on the importance of youth development throughout his tenure.
In other Tottenham news, Frank Lampard has delivered this verdict on Spurs’ title challenge.