In mid-March, Tottenham announced that John McDermott, their head of academy coaching
and development, was leaving the club to join the Football Association. After 15 years in
North London, McDermott will move to St Georges’ Park in June, becoming an assistant to incumbent
technical director, Les Reed.
For Spurs, it not only sees the departure of a long-tenured employee, but someone who
has been fundamental to their footballing identity over the past decade and a half and
key to their success.
McDermott began his coaching career at Leeds United, before becoming Watford’s first
Football in the Community officer in 1992, before graduating to be the Hertfordshire
club’s head of academy. He arrived at Tottenham in 2005, after a prior spell as a national
coach with the FA and, at the point of his departure, McDermott was in overall charge
of every Tottenham side below the first-team, a responsibility he had had since 2016.
Tough, disciplined and demanding, McDermott is also known for his pastoral care, and encouraging
his young players to develop as a people. In a recent article by The Athletic’s Charlie
Eccleshare, former coach Chris Ramsey remembered an environment which was ‘focused on the
individual rather than the team’ and in which ‘patience was an absolute non-negotiable’.
In the same article, Les Ferdinand, who coached within Spurs’ academy between 2008 and 2014,
also recalled academy gameplans being slanted in favour of individual players, with the
aim of highlighting particular strengths and furthering careers – if not with Spurs,
then with another professional club as high up the pyramid as possible.
“We might say to Harry (Kane)”, Ferdinand remembered, “I don’t want you to close
the centre-backs down. Let them pump the ball so we can show them that this centre-back
can head the ball and defend properly.”
Such focus, in conjunction with the new training ground which opened in 2012, has delivered
a significant dividend. England captain Kane is, of course, the academy’s most famous
product. While Harry Winks is an established Premier League midfielder and centre-half
Japhet Tanganga has recently broken into Jose Mourinho’s first-team. Oliver Skipp has
also recently started to benefit from more consistent game time and much is expected
of forward Troy Parrott, who has made his Premier League debut and – at 18 – is
already a Republic of Ireland international.
But the club have also made a significant profit on McDermott’s work, graduating and
selling England internationals Andros Townsend, Steven Caulker, Ryan Mason and Jake Livermore,
while also receiving significant fees for – among others – Alex Pritchard, Tom Carroll
and Nabil Bentaleb.
Between them, the sale of those seven players raised roughly £75m, providing a tangible
endorsement of McDermott’s work, but also vital resources with which to strengthen the
first-team and, of course, a useful way of remaining FFP compliant.
McDermott worked alongside seven different managers during his time at Tottenham. The
first being Martin Jol, the last being Jose Mourinho. But it was under Mauricio Pochettino
that he really started to gain recognition. He and Pochettino were particularly close,
often spending time in each other’s offices, exchanging ideas and progress reports, and
the collaboration and trust between them was fundamental to opening the pathway to the
first team.
McDermott was also an important voice in the recruitment of young players and would sometimes
take part in Pochettino’s first-team training sessions. Less a head of department, he was
more an active part of everyday life at Hotspur Way.
With Pochettino leaving the club in November 2019, though, McDermott is thought to have
believed that this was the right time for a change in his career and that, ultimately,
the FA’s offer was too good to refuse
His departure from the club won’t just leave a technical and logistical void, but a cultural
one also, and Tottenham will be hard pressed to find a successor who offers both the longevity
and identity that McDermott has provided, and who can also overcome the challenges the
club face in quite the same way.
Increasingly, academies – like football as a whole - operate in a world dictated by
money, with young players and their families drawn towards the most significant financial
inducements. Tottenham, however, are one of several Category One academies to employ a
wage cap, prohibiting players under the age of 17 from earning in excess of certain amounts.
Southampton and Liverpool adopted similar schemes back in 2016 and while healthy and
designed to encourage a sporting focus, it creates an obvious disadvantage in recruitment
– particularly in a market in which, supposedly, clubs have been known to offer up to £11,000
a week to academy prospects, as well as other material incentives.
McDermott’s successor will also have to cope with the various restrictions created
by the UK leaving the European Union, which will limit Premier League clubs’ ability
to recruit and prohibit them from signing foreign players under the age of 18.
In addition, the Pochettino-McDermott partnership was a recruiting tool of its own, and the
finest advertisement for the club’s tendency to promote from within. Without that dynamic,
and now with a head coach in Jose Mourinho who is not associated with giving chances
to developing players, Tottenham have seen another of their advantages disappear.
But these are problems which Daniel Levy will have to solve with his next appointment. The
pipeline between Spurs’ academy and their first-team was fundamental to their rise under
Pochettino and that partnership will have to be replicated if they are to overcome football’s
wealth disparities and achieve beyond their means again.