I won’t belabor this because this is less NEWS news than just confirmation of earlier reported news — Tottenham Hotspur have, formally, announced that young attacking midfielder Alfie Devine has joined Championship side Plymouth Argyle on loan to the end of the season.
Alfie Devine has joined Championship side Plymouth Argyle on loan for the remainder of the season.
Good luck, Alfie!
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) January 17, 2024
Matty wrote about this story this morning right after Spurs announced that they had terminated Alfie’s season-long loan at League One side Port Vale. That they’re sending him straight back out on loan but up a division is recognition that he’s both been excelling already on loan and ready for a jump up in level, and that’s pretty cool.
From what I can gather, Alfie’s been getting on like a house on fire at Port Vale, but has mostly been deployed as an eight. That’s fine, but the suggestion is that he could get minutes at the ten, his preferred position, at Plymouth. Spurs already have central defender Ashley Phillips on loan at Plymouth, so this gives Alfie a teammate and someone he knows at the club.
And for what it’s worth, he’ll be playing for a manager who knows him and knows exactly what he can bring to Plymouth. Ian Forster worked with Alfie as part of the England youth setup and it sounds like Foster’s got big plans for Devine when he arrives.
“Alfie is a player I’m really familiar with. I have known Alfie since his Wigan days, when I was working for the FA. We had a lot of players coming through the pathway at Wigan.
“When selecting Alfie for England teams, he played a year up, which shows you the level of confidence I have in him, in terms of his ability and his character. Bringing him here was a no-brainer in terms of knowing what I’m getting from the person and the player.
“I know how talented he is, I know how hard working he is, and it gives me a little bit of a head start because he knows the role and he knows exactly what I will be asking him to do. Regardless of the shape, he understands the principles of play.
“He’s a really versatile attacking midfield player. He can play in advanced midfield roles, and he can also play in that deeper role as well. He can handle the ball in tight areas under pressure, and he is an attacking threat. He’s someone that can cover a lot of positions for us, which is a great thing to have.”
This all sounds pretty dang good to me. Out of all of Spurs’ young players, Devine looks like one of the ones closest to actually cracking into Tottenham’s first team in the next couple of years. This will be a good test for him as to whether he can make an impact in the second division. Go get ‘em, Alfie.