Ange Postecoglou explains why he loves watching Lucas Bergvall, Gray and Odobert in training
Ange Postecoglou believes that he can develop Tottenham's group of talented teenagers while aiming for short term success.
Spurs had three new teenagers arrive into their first team this summer in Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray and Wilson Odobert, signed for a combined £78.5million between them, while Yang Min-hyeok and Luka Vuskovic will join up Postecoglou's squad next year to continue the conveyor belt of talent coming into the club.
While all five teenagers come with bags of ability and excitement surrounding them, how does the Tottenham head coach marry the process of developing them all with the need to bring success to the club in the short-term and end that 16-year trophy drought at the north London outfit?
"It has to happen in conjunction. What I'm trying to do, which is what I've done wherever I've been irrespective of my tenure, is build teams that are going to be challenging over a course of time," said Postecoglou. "All teams that do that seem to grow together, so you need that element of youth for it to come to fruition as you go along.
"It has to be a combination of both. When do you hit the sweet spot when you have enough experience in the building? That's hopefully when it all goes together, and when the experienced players come to the end of a cycle, you've got the rest coming through. I've always done it and it's a balancing act.
"I'm really excited about the young players we've brought in and the ones who are coming in, and look, another manager might be the beneficiary of them, I don't know. But in the course of time they're going to be really good footballers and make an impact. They'll only develop if they play, so we've got to give them the opportunity to play.
"The three we've brought in, with Mikey [Moore] and young Will Lankshear as well, Wilson, Archie, Lucas, I just love watching them in training at the moment. They want to play, they want to make an impact. They don't look or behave like 18, 19-year-olds. Which is great for me. When they're 21, they're hopefully going to be flying and it's part of our responsibility to develop them. If you want to have a successful period, you can't just bring in experienced players to have one hit at success."
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Former Liverpool defender and later Match of the Day pundit Alan Hansen once famously said 'you can't win anything with kids' about Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United side.
"Until you do," said Postecoglou. "It's always great to break stereotypes. You definitely need the experience. Having winners in the group helps that process because when a young guy comes in, if he's got somebody there who's already won things, he kind of learns the behaviours so you do need both.
"But I've always liked the fearlessness and naivety of young players. They haven't felt the pain of losing something. I like the fact that they're a little bit fearless."
With that long silverware drought at Tottenham, Postecoglou admits that he prefers to use that big absence of success as an incentive rather than a weight around the players' necks and his own.
"You can try to ignore it but it's a reality. That's what it is. It's a fact. So just face up to it mate. I kind of flip it. As I keep saying to the guys, 'What a great opportunity. Imagine you are the ones to do it'," the Australian explained. "I keep saying, it was the biggest attraction to me coming here.
"I get it, it's the Premier League and everyone wants to be here. It's a big club and you do get well rewarded financially and talk to fantastic people like yourselves. All these kinds of things are great attractions but the one that ticked the biggest box for me was 'imagine I did win something'.
"Imagine it was in my second year. Imagine that happened. That's something I could reflect pretty fondly on. That's how I see it. I don't see it as a burden, I see it as an opportunity. That's what I keep saying to the players every day. Don't ignore it. See it as an opportunity to do something special. It's not easy. When you say these things and I put it out there, then [the reaction is], 'Oh my god, what if it doesn't happen?' and we've lost at the weekend and people are coming for you! But that's OK. Don't worry. Think about the flip side of that, if it does happen. That's what has got to motivate us."
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