Tottenham's pre-season tour of North America may have been a mixed bag in terms of results, but Mauricio Pochettino will hopefully have learned some valuable lessons about which of his youngsters can follow in the footsteps of Harry Kane and Co.

Pre-season results are a notoriously unreliable indicator of a club's fortunes once the phoney war stops and the real stuff starts. Spurs beat Paris Saint-Germain and lost to Roma and Manchester City, but unfortunately for those American fans who got to watch, the results were largely irrelevant.

Youth games and friendlies are all about preparation for the real thing, and Pochettino has been able to combine the two in the sense that he has used pre-season tours to test the mettle of his most promising kids, to see which ones are ready to be given a first-team opportunity.

He did it with great effect in his first season, giving Kane and Ryan Mason a chance to impress when Spurs visited the States. Kane had made a mini-breakthrough towards the end of the previous season, when former youth academy director Tim Sherwood had lost faith in Roberto Soldado and Emmanuel Adebayor.

But Pochettino still needed to know if the raw young striker had what it takes. He and Mason both impressed the manager, and Pochettino turned to the two of them with great effect early that season when his ‘established' players failed to impress.

More recently, Harry Winks and Josh Onomah have been given their chances. While Winks took his with both hands, and became a key part of Pochettino's plans until injury curtailed his season prematurely, Onomah has yet to impress in his occasional appearances.

The youngster was part of England's world-cup winning Under-20 side, along with Kyle Walker-Peters, and both are looking to break through at Spurs this season.

The latter has the additional incentive of knowing there is a better chance now that his near namesake Kyle Walker has moved to Manchester City, and has made no secret of his ambition to push Kieran Trippier all the way for the right-back spot.

“I'm trying to show that I can be second in line, and these are the games to do that out here on tour, and back at the training ground,” he said.

“I want to show the manager I'm ready, I want to show him he can trust me in big games if he needs to. These games are the time to do it and on the training pitch, too.”

Walker-Peters has spoken to Onomah too about the step up to first-team action.

“Josh has told me that the intensity is a lot higher, people are a lot more physical,” he said. “I'll only get used to that by playing in these games, and hopefully I'll get more opportunities and get better.”

Onomah's case is more complicated because there is uncertainty over where to play him. He showed with England's young lions that he can thrive in his preferred position in central midfield. But Pochettino has plenty of options there, with Eric Dier, Victor Wanyama and Mousa Dembélé vying for the holding position, while Christian Eriksen and Winks are ahead of him in a more advanced role.

So Pochettino has mostly played him on the right of midfield, or even up front, and he has not shown his full potential yet. One game in particular dismayed the manager, when Onomah and others including Cameron Carter-Vickers were given rare starts, against Wycombe Wanderers in the FA Cup. But it was Spurs' worst performance of the season and Pochettino made it clear afterwards that he had serious doubts about some of the players that day.

He does see the potential in both Onomah and Carter-Vickers, though, and took them to the US and will try to give them further opportunities this season. Tashan Oakley-Boothe helped England Under-17s to runners-up spot in the European Under-17 finals, and was also on the tour, making his Spurs debut in the game against PSG. Look out for more appearances from the 17-year-old central midfielder this season.

Realistically, Winks and Walker-Peters have the best chances of playing a significant number of games, especially with the latter able to cover at left-back too. Onomah may get more chances in the Carabao (EFL) Cup, which also applies to Carter-Vickers and Oakley-Boothe.

The most interesting omission from Tottenham's tour, not counting Moussa Sissoko the £30million misfit, was Marcus Edwards, the 18-year-old sensation who was likened to Lionel Messi by Pochettino last season. The teenager has been highly rated for some time, made a spectactular cameo performance in his debut in the EFL Cup, and was part of England's Under-19 side that won the mini-world cup.

Although he was left behind this summer, it was thought to be to give him an extended break after international duty, and the club quashed all doubts about his future by awarding him a new four-year contract at the end of July. He is certainly one that Pochettino rates, so expect to see plenty more of him in the next season or two.