Liverpool’s Alex Inglethorpe worked with John McDermott at Tottenham Hotspur.
Tottenham Hotspur are losing the best in the business in John McDermott, according to comments made by the Liverpool academy director Alex Inglethorpe.
McDermott is leaving his role as Tottenham’s Head of Academy Coaching and Player Development, to take up the position of Assistant Technical Director at the Football Association, as announced by the Londoners on Friday.
The man responsible for developing past and present Spurs stars including Harry Kane, Harry Winks, Danny Rose, Ryan Mason and Andros Townsend has spent 15 years at the club, of which six were spent working alongside Inglethorpe.
And in an interview with The Coaches’ Voice in 2019, the man who left Tottenham for Liverpool seven years earlier said, unprompted: “I learnt from so many good people at Tottenham. I consider John McDermott to be the best in the business at doing what he does. I was very lucky to spend the time I did with him.
“He taught me about standards. That’s not just standards of actions. It’s standards of thinking. Standards of my thinking as a coach, and being able to pass those standards on to the players I was working with.”
There is no news as yet as to who McDermott’s successor might be.
But in a statement on the official Tottenham website on Friday, the Spurs chairman Daniel Levy that the process has already begun.
“It is now vital that we take the necessary time and attention needed to identify the right expertise to move our Academy forward, reflecting just how important a role like this is to our club,” he said. “This process has already commenced and we shall provide an update in due course.”
The former Tottenham youth coach, Justin Cochrane, quit to take charge of England’s Under-16s in 2019, three years after another one, Kieran McKenna, left for a similar role with Liverpool’s northwest rivals Manchester United.
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