25-year old goalkeeper Brandon Austin has yet to make his first team debut for Tottenham Hotspur, but he is nonetheless in talks to extend his stay past this year.
Alasdair Gold, writing for Football.London, says that Spurs are currently in negotiations for Austin, currently serving as the club’s third choice keeper, on a contract extension as Tottenham prepares to a likely foray back into European competition next season.
Understand Spurs have held talks with Brandon Austin over signing a contract extension. With those club-trained homegrown issues I recently spoke about, this makes sense as he’s been on the bench 33 times in the past two seasons and is well regarded. https://t.co/BKTY7PKgW4
— Alasdair Gold (@AlasdairGold) April 19, 2024
Austin has been filling in as Spurs’ #2 after Fraser Forster injured his foot a few months ago, and has been on numerous Tottenham benches in the Premier League this season but he has yet to make his first team debut (which is probably a good thing for Spurs, to be honest).
Gold references the homegrown/club trained quota issues in this piece, and in that light this makes complete sense. Austin is one of three homegrown players at the club along with Oliver Skipp and Alfie Whiteman; it doesn’t appear as though Pape Sarr will qualify despite being a Tottenham player for three seasons before turning 21, since he’s from a non-EU nation. Spurs need to register at minimum four homegrown/club trained players in order to register a full squad of 25 players for European competition next season. It’s presumed that Tottenham will attempt to address the shortage in this summer’s transfer window (or they could simply choose to have a smaller European squad).
And frankly, registering your third keeper is kind of a gimme move that all clubs should consider, whether they’re in Europe or not. We have no idea how good Austin is since we’ve never seen him play a first team match, but letting a homegrown keeper be your break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option between the sticks is almost like a free hit. I don’t know what will happen with Alfie Whiteman next season, but if Fraser Forster opts to leave or is sold, there’s every chance the club might have both of them backing up Guglielmo Vicario.
Spurs might also just promote a U21 player to the full squad and register them to List A for homegrown purposes, or they might… just not worry about it and register a slightly smaller squad. We’ll have to see. But keeping Brandon around does make a certain kind of sense. Hopefully he can actually make his club debut at some point along the way.