Standard: Antonio Conte blocked loan for Harvey White

Earlier this morning (God, was it only this morning?) we reported that there were at least four football clubs that were interested in taking Spurs academy grad and central midfielder Harvey White on loan. Those clubs included Hull City and Luton Town in the Championship, and Portsmouth & Sunderland in League One.

However, according to Dan Kilpatrick, Harvey isn’t going anywhere today. Due to the rush of outgoings in Spurs’ midfield, which includes Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso, Spurs manager Antonio Conte has blocked any loan move for White today. He will stay at Tottenham.

On the one hand this is kind of a bummer for Harvey. He’s one of the players who, like Nile John, really could use another loan— he had a pretty good one in League One while at Portsmouth last year, averaging two shots and 1.6 key passes per 90 minutes in limited minutes with Pompey. Seems like the kind of loan where he could really improve under the right circumstances.

On the other hand, Spurs really are kinda shorthanded in the center of midfield, and any sort of injury crisis means that White might have to make a bench or even (gasp) play. The odds are he won’t get many minutes but he’ll continue to train with the first team and will also continue to get minutes in the PL2, and that’s not terrible, I guess.

I’d have liked to have seen him be loaned, but Conte obviously thinks highly of him, and that’s encouraging.