Spurs are brewing their own Nwaneri in 16-year-old academy "cheat code"

Submitted by daniel on
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Tottenham Hotspur are going through a significant period of change.

Last summer, Harry Kane finally left the club, and Ange Postecoglou came in to try to get the team back to playing an exciting attacking brand of football.

On top of that, the board have shifted focus towards building a young, hungry and up-and-coming squad that can grow and develop into something special alongside the Australian.

The likes of Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray are perfect examples of this, but the North Londoners have a youngster of their own who could be their answer to Arsenal's Ethan Nwaneri, a youngster who's outscoring James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski.

Tottenham's exciting youngsters

So, when it comes to the first team, there are two youngsters who stand out: Gray and Bergvall.

The former joined the club from Leeds United for around £30m in the summer, and while he's primarily a midfielder, he has done exceptionally well covering at centre-back and full-back.

In fact, the young Englishman has been so impressive across the campaign that it's very easy to forget that he is still just 18, and while it was a bold prediction at the time, Ben Mattinson's claim that he's a "future £100m cm" is looking more and more realistic with every passing game.

Likewise, while it took Bergvall some time to settle into the swing of things, he's started to look more and more at home in the midfield of a Premier League side in the last couple of months.

For example, FBref has placed him in the top 3% of midfielders in the league for carrying distance, the top 4% for long pass completion, switches and goal-creating actions from shots, the top 5% for shots blocked, the top 8% for interceptions, the top 9% for overall passes completed and more, all per 90.

In short, despite only turning 19 earlier this month, the Swedish phenom is already one of the most complete midfielders in the league, and in the years to come, he'll undoubtedly start getting the credit for that.

However, it gets even better for the Lilywhites, as they have an incredibly exciting youngster in the academy who could be their answer to Arsenal's Nwaneri.

Spurs' answer to Nwaneri

So, with the player in question being an exciting prospect coming out of Hotspur Way, there will no doubt be plenty of you who are thinking of Mikey Moore, and while he's an exceptional gem in his own right, that is not the case.

Instead, we are talking about the sensationally gifted Luca Williams-Barnett, who, similar to how Nwaneri has taken the game by storm on the red side of North London, looks like he could do the same for the white side in the coming years.

That might sound like hyperbole considering he's yet to play a minute of first-team football and is still just 16, but akin to the Gunners' young superstar, he's been utterly sublime for the youth teams and, as respected analyst Ben Mattinson has described as someone "to keep an eye on".

For example, in just 22 appearances for the U18s, totalling 1707 minutes, the unreal prospect, whom academy expert and pundit John Wenham dubbed a "cheat code," has scored 17 goals and provided nine assists.

That means he is currently averaging 1.18 goal involvements every game, or one every 65.65 minutes, and you don't need us to tell you that is exceptional.

In contrast, the Gunners' teenage sensation scored 15 goals and provided five assists in 23 appearances for their U18, totalling 1857 minutes, which comes out to an average of a goal involvement every 1.15 games, or every 92.85 minutes.

On top of bettering his future rival, the Lilywhite's gem is also outscoring some of his senior teammates, as he's found the back of the net 15 times in 15 games this season.

In contrast, James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Son Heung-min are all on ten goals, for example, and even Dominic Solanke, who has scored 11 goals this year, is behind the youngster in that respect.

Ultimately, Arsenal's Nwaneri might be the new, exciting academy product on the scene this season, but in Williams-Barnett, Spurs could have their own generational talent on the way.