Tottenham Hotspur may now have to keep promising youngster Alfie Devine at the club this season as they struggle to fulfil their homegrown quota.
This has been suggested by reliable Spurs correspondent Alasdair Gold, who has been speaking on his latest YouTube video to discuss the latest transfer news coming out of N17.
Spurs need to register at least eight players who qualify as homegrown for their upcoming Champions League journey, but Gold does not believe someone like Harry Winks will be kept to help meet that quota.
Instead, Gold believes Antonio Conte will more likely look to someone like Devine to step up and remain at the club to potentially play a role in the matchday squads for the Champions League games.
However, Gold also pointed out this is not something he thinks will go down particularly well with the 17-year-old, who has been linked with a loan move away.
He said: “In essence, Harry Winks – no, I don’t think he really needs to stick around just for the Champions League games.
“I guess Harvey White maybe has to hang around, which I think would be unfair to him.
“It was interesting, someone said to me the other day in the club that maybe they’ll have to keep Alfie Devine around purely to be able to register him in European stuff. I just don’t think that will go down very well. I think Alfie is very keen to play football now.”
TIF Thoughts on Gold’s comments…
We think this would be a real blow for Devine if he was forced to remain in north London this season given he is incredibly unlikely to play considering the wealth of depth in Conte’s midfield at present.
Should Spurs allow Devine to leave on loan?
Yes
No
Devine has only made one appearance for the Lilywhites since joining, which came in the FA Cup against Marine, so it is difficult to see how he’d get minutes in the elite European competition.
However, he did impress in that appearance, having found the back of the net in his 44 minutes in a Spurs shirt, but with the majority of his football coming in the youth sides, a loan move away feels like the next step for him.