Tottenham fans may have been concerned by the sight of Harry Winks playing for England in Spain last week after starting just three Premier League games since his return from a long-term ankle injury. But they should be excited as there is more to come from that particular talent pool: gifted local central midfielders.

Tottenham created history by being the first team in the Premier League era to not sign anyone during the summer transfer window, but there was a new face in their opening-day win at Newcastle. Luke Amos was promoted to the squad and given his first five minutes of action in the top flight. The 21-year-old tore his ACL in a reserve game against Blackburn the following week and is now out for the season. That has enabled an even younger midfielder to push himself forward.

With Tottenham’s stars from the World Cup missing, Oliver Skipp – like Amos – impressed Pochettino in pre-season, especially against Milan in the International Champions Cup. Amos was thrust into the deep end at St James’s Park but he did so with half a season of men’s football behind him, albeit in League Two. Skipp was drafted on to the Spurs’ bench at Wembley against Barcelona and the subsequent trip to Cardiff even though his only official senior action came in a couple of starts in the Checkatrade Trophy. Less than a year ago Skipp was an unused sub for the Under-21s in that competition at Barnet, with the No71 sprawled across his back.

After a few tastes of reserve-team football last year – his first season as a full-time footballer after leaving school in Hertford – the industrious Skipp has worked his way into the Under-23s starting line-up this year, often operating on the right of a midfield three, from where he feeds the front men with clever slide-rule passes, usually with his right boot. Filling out rapidly, the 18-year-old can now win challenges and get box to box.

Capped by England at Under-16, 17 and now 18 levels, Skipp has seized his chance this season. With Winks back from injury, Skipp has returned to learning his trade on Friday and Monday nights with Wayne Burnett’s Under-23s. But such is the tight-knit structure of Tottenham’s youth development, special talents are nurtured by all. Pochettino and his coaches rarely miss a home Under-23s game (most of which are held at Stevenage), where they take time to chat to the young players and staff pitchside before kick-off.

Spurs reserves experience a wide variety of styles and situations: technical academy football in Premier League 2, elite European opposition in the Uefa Youth League, and hardened League One and Two professionals in the EFL Trophy. Amos was among a clutch of Spurs Under-23s loaned out during last season – he went to Stevenage, his local league League Two club, following the path taken by Harry Kane, who had loan spells with Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich City and Leicester City before making his Premier League debut under Tim Sherwood (his former reserve-team manager) – but Pochettino prefers to keep the players he considers close to first-team selection in-house. Winks and Kyle Walker-Peters remained at the club’s Enfield training ground rather than getting senior games elsewhere last season. Expect Skipp to do the same. Acceleration can be rapid at Spurs. Now 22, Winks was in the Under-23s at the start of 2016 and finished the year in the first XI.

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Some of Spurs’ rivals recruit from far and wide, but almost all of their second string are English and the vast majority of their Under-23s are from the A10 corridor that stretches from White Hart Lane to north Hertfordshire: Spursland. They come from Hackney and Hertford, Enfield and Cheshunt, Borehamwood and Winchmore Hill. Goalkeeper Alfie Whiteman even grew up a short walk from White Hart Lane. These are local lads coming through the system at a Premier League club.

Pochettino and academy manager John McDermott know they only need one first-team candidate to emerge from the 23s each season to justify the club’s huge investment. That one may well be Amos or Skipp, this year or next. At this rate Hertfordshire could produce three Tottenham midfielders in rapid succession: Winks from Hemel Hempstead, Amos from Ware and now Skipp. Now that would be something.

This week in: 1990

Bournemouth had to add initials to players’ names on the team-sheet when their reserves faced Torquay at Dean Court in the South West Counties League. Centre-back Mark Redknapp was joined by little brother Jamie in central midfield, the first time they had played together at this level. The Cherries triumphed 3-0. Presumably untroubled in goal was former Spurs back-up Peter Guthrie, who became a legend of the Hong Kong football scene in the 1990s. Jamie’s midfield partner was 32-year-old Tony Pulis. Jamie, 17, was already a regular on the bench for the first team and earned a starting place a fortnight later, bringing Pulis’s playing time to an end. The Bournemouth manager at the time? Redknapp, H.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jamie Redknapp in action for Bournemouth. Photograph: Professional Sport/Popperfoto/Getty Images

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It’s rare to see fringe first-teamers playing for the reserves, so the exceptions stand out. It’s only three years since Danny Simpson was a vital cog in the Leicester City side that won the Premier League. The full-back, now 31, has fallen so far in a couple of injury-plagued years that Claude Puel didn’t even include him in the Foxes’ 25-man Premier League squad this season. Simpson is keeping match fit before a possible move in January. Last Friday he and fellow title-winner Andy King played in Leicester reserves’ late 1-0 defeat at Spurs’ training ground. It must have felt a long way from the glory days under Claudio Ranieri.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Danny Simpson and Andy King in more productive times. Photograph: Nigel French/PA

Next man up

The nature of second team football is epitomised by West Ham’s forward options. Wide attacker Oladapo Afolayan has been a regular for their Under-23s over the last year, having pressed pause on his civil engineering degree at Loughborough University. West Ham are the latest stop on a career that has already featured spells at Chelsea, Toronto FC and Solihull Moors. At the other end of the recruitment scale, Xande Silva cost a reported £2m when West Ham signed him from Vitoria Guimaraes in the summer. Athletic and graceful, he scored an exhilarating five-minute hat-trick in a Premier League 2 game against Tottenham in August. The 21-year-old could yet be in Manuel Pellegrini’s plans this season.

Fantasy football

The Premier League 2 fixture list has taken on a somewhat retro feel of late. With Everton not playing until Sunday, Toffees fans can still go to Goodison Park on Saturday afternoon (27 October) to watch their reserves play Manchester City in the Premier League 2. Chelsea have also taken to playing Under-23 games on Saturday lunchtimes: they host Brighton at Aldershot this Saturday, while Manchester City went down 1-4 to Chelsea in a late goal flurry at their Academy Stadium last Saturday. On 3 November, City, Arsenal, West Ham and Liverpool will all play their Premier League 2 games at home on Saturday afternoon.

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