Troy Parrott scored a brace for Tottenham’s U23s and it’s good

Most Tottenham Hotspur fans who pay even a cursory attention to the youth teams are probably familiar with Troy Parrott. The young Spurs striker was one of the more hyped youth prospects when he was signed from Ireland as a 15 year old two years ago. Now, he’s working his way up into the highest levels of the youth system, and people are starting to take notice.

He’s already scored 14 goals this season for Spurs’ U18 side, but yesterday he was thrown into the starting lineup for the U23s for a Premier League 2 match against Swansea. And he scored a brace.

We have his goals, and they’re pretty, pretty good.

First, he rifled in a free kick from outside the box in the 40th minute.

Ten minutes before time, and after Swansea had equalized the score at 1-1, Parrott received a ball from Tariq Hinds, dribbled a defender, and slotted home the winner.

You can watch the full highlights of the match, a 2-1 win for Spurs, on Swansea’s website.

“Party Parrott” (we have christened him thusly, it is a thing now, you’re welcome) has already been described as the best youth prospect to come out of Ireland since Robbie Keane. And when he does stuff like this it’s not difficult to see why. He’s a prolific scorer and has a real eye for goal even at such a young age.

This is the part of the article where we caution everyone about putting too much hype on young players, as youth development is basically a crap-shoot, and there isn’t necessarily a direct correlation between outstanding performance at the youth level and transformation into a top-level Premier League caliber professional footballer. Cameron Carter-Vickers looked destined for the Spurs first team a couple seasons ago, and he’s found the transition more difficult than anticipated. Same with Marcus Edwards. The jury’s still out on both of them and that’s not to say that they can’t still make it, but there’s no question that they aren’t as hyped now as they were two years ago.

But on the other hand, Spurs are a team that likes to develop and bring through young players, even if they don’t always pan out. And you’ve gotta say, Parrott appears to be doing pretty much everything right at the level he’s at right now. Also, hype is good and fun, and Troy Parrott seems to be the one player generating the most right now.

So I’m going to make a not-so-bold prediction based on absolutely nothing but hype and the occasional goal highlight like these: Troy Parrott will be included in Tottenham’s pre-season tour to Asia next summer, and will make his first team debut for Spurs as a late substitute in an early-round cup match. And it will be good.