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Football London
Football London
Sport
Rob Guest

Who is Nile John? The Tottenham academy ace Nuno Espirito Santo has started vs Pacos de Ferreira

Nuno Espirito Santo has named a rather youthful Tottenham squad for this evening's Europa Conference League tie against Pacos de Ferreira.

Making it clear in his pre-match press conference that the players who started on Sunday against Man City wouldn't be involved from the off in Portugal, the Spurs head coach actually made wholesale changes to his squad.

Experienced players such as Matt Doherty, Harry Winks, Ben Davies and Giovani Lo Celso came into the side, with Pierluigi Gollini, Cristian Romero and Bryan Gil all handed debuts.

Young duo Dane Scarlett and Nile John also came into his XI in a front three with Bryan Gil as the boss gave the academy aces a go after impressing in pre-season.

With many knowing all about Scarlett after making quite a name for himself in N17 over the past year, some fans maybe don't know so much about John.

So who is the Spurs wonderkid? football.london takes a look.

John knows all about the club after joining Tottenham as a seven-year-old.

Impressing for the U16s during the 2018/19 season, the midfielder stepped up to the U18s the following campaign and made a total of nine appearances for the side, with one of those coming in the UEFA Youth League match against Crvena zvezda.

The 18-year-old, who was born in White City, Shepherd's Bush, carried on his form last term and featured regularly for the U18s.

At the start of the year John was called up to the development squad and went on to make ten appearances for the side, playing the full 90 minutes on each occasion.

Clearly impressing Jose Mourinho when training with the first-team squad, the midfielder made his senior bow off the bench in February as he came on for the final nine minutes of the team's 4-0 win over Wolfsberger AC in the Europa League.

John did appear on the bench on the final day of the Premier League season at Leicester City but he did not come on.

A regular in pre-season under Espirito Santo as he featured against the likes of Leyton Orient, Colchester United and MK Dons, John will now be looking to take his chance in the Europa Conference League this term.

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