Tottenham Hotspur have a brilliant track record of producing top young players throughout their history.
Harry Kane is arguably Tottenham’s greatest-ever academy graduate, considering he is their all-time top goalscorer and has a case for being the club’s best player of all time as well.
Similarly, Ledley King, who Kyle Walker dubbed as “underrated” was a brilliant centre-back who came through Spurs’ academy as well.
Harry Redknapp rates Mikey Moore highly, who seems to be yet another excellent prospect from Tottenham’s academy.
A young player who did not quite have the career he was expected to at Spurs is Marcus Edwards.
However, a former coach at Tottenham, Temisan Williams has revealed just how outstanding the Sporting CP winger was as a young player.
Marcus Edwards dubbed the ‘English Messi’ as a teenager at Tottenham
Tottenham were interested in re-signing Marcus Edwards, as per a revelation in June. While Ruben Amorim was keen on Sporting’s Edwards as a potential addition at Manchester United as well.
Temisan Williams, who was a former coach at both Tottenham and Arsenal was quizzed on The Overlap Breakdown podcast on who is the most technical player he has ever coached and he named Edwards.
“Hands down, Marcus Edwards.”
So much so that Temisan Williams believes that when he came across Edwards as a teenager, he felt like he was witnessing the English version of Lionel Messi.
“When I saw Marcus Edwards at Tottenham, I thought I saw the English Messi. He was that good and he was playing at an age group up at the time.”
Williams expanded: “He was just so quick on the ball, it was ridiculous. It looked too easy for him. Even though he was Under-15s, it looked so easy and so I’m not surprised when [Mauricio] Pochettino came out and was saying what he was saying about Marcus Edwards in relation to what he can end up doing.”
“And it’s really good to see now that he’s obviously fulfilling his potential, we’re seeing what he’s doing at Sporting CP and of course, there’s been talks of him potentially coming back to the Premier League but he was definitely standout.”
Mauricio Pochettino compared Marcus Edwards to a young Lionel Messi
In 2016, Mauricio Pochettino likened Edwards to Lionel Messi as well.
Pochettino explained via Sky Sports: “The qualities, it’s only looks, his body and the way that he plays, remember a little bit from the beginning of Messi.”
The former Spurs boss even felt Edwards had shades of Erik Lamela about him due to his directness and fearless approach to the game,
“He’s small, he’s left-footed, I remember a little bit [Erik] Lamela when he was at River Plate, remember he had long hair, when he was 14, 15 years old, there is a lot of videos on YouTube that you can see that he took the ball, didn’t give a pass and shot straight away.”
“He [Edwards] is a very good prospect and potentially he can be a top player but we need to be patient and tell him that he has a lot of talent, enough talent to be a top player, a great player. But now, it’s how he builds his future, that’s very important. And it’s our responsibility to tell him.”
Perhaps had Tottenham kept Edwards, they could have had a chance to further develop a truly special talent.