Wasteful Tottenham players are much better in training – McDermott pans display
By Harry Sykes
Tottenham’s emerging stars were well below par in their FA Youth Cup defeat to Chelsea on Tuesday night, according to academy chief John McDermott.
Spurs Under-18s lost 2-1 to their bitter rivals in the first leg of the televised semi-final clash at White Hart Lane.
The north Londoners are still in with a chance of reaching the final of the prestigious youth tournament but must produce an improved showing in the second leg at Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening.
Spurs’ head of player development McDermott admitted the players did not do themselves justice in the first of the two matches.
“It’s a stage where you want to play and as the home team you want to be more expansive than we were tonight,” said McDermott to the official Tottenham website. “We were wasteful in possession too many times and credit to Chelsea, I thought they were strong and they showed their quality.”
Chelsea took a 2-0 half-time courtesy of headers from Reece James and Ike Ugbo but Kazaiah Sterling snatched a late goal and Luke McCormick missed a stoppage-time penalty for the visitors.
Spurs were grateful to an impressive display from goalkeeper Brandon Austin, who made a string of impressive saves as well as keeping out the late penalty.
“We’ve got to take credit that we stayed in the game, Brandon made some big saves and in the last 20 minutes it was a more even game but we’ve got to do better in possession and impose what we’re about rather than be reactive to the opponents,” McDermott added to the Spurs site.
“I don’t think we showed our best – our players are better than that performance, certainly in possession, but the fact that we’re still in the tie is credit to the strong mentality that this group has. I feel pretty confident that we will play better than that at Stamford Bridge.
“What’s disappointing is that more players didn’t exhibit what they’ve shown in training and in previous games but with the fact that we’ve got another game on Saturday now, it’s a real opportunity to put right some of the things that weren’t good enough tonight.”
Sterling, 18, lifted his tally to five goals in six FA Youth Cup matches this season to provide further evidence of the talent that has prompted first-team manager Mauricio Pochettino to identify him as one for the future.
Tottenham’s senior side are next in action on Sunday when they host Southampton in the Premier League at White Hart Lane.
In other Tottenham news, a forward has signed after Spurs agreed terms on an out-of-window deal.
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