I feel lucky for my 10 year Tottenham journey despite only making one appearance
Alfie Whiteman has spoken about the ten years he spent at Tottenham Hotspur as a player without playing a single Premier League game, and his experience of working with some of the big-name stars who have been at the club.
It is often joked that the role of a reserve goalkeeper is the best career out there, with the privilege of being paid handsomely to train and travel the world, without needing to cope with the pressure of being on the pitch during matchday.
Whiteman is perhaps the best illustration of that, with the boyhood Spurs fan spending the last eight years at Tottenham, but failing to make a single appearance for the club.
Whiteman exited Spurs along with three other first-team stars two weeks ago, and he has now shed light on his experience with the Lilywhites.
Alfie Whiteman speaks about demanding Tottenham schedule
The 26-year-old has now pointed out that while his dream was always to get on the pitch, backup goalkeepers work just as hard as everyone else in training.
The Tottenham academy graduate has trained under the likes of Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Ange Postecoglou, and he made it clear that the backup players have a key role to play in the squad.
Whiteman told The Times: “Some people think it’s just training and then going home at 1 pm and watching movies, but it’s prepping for games tactically, intense training for the subs the day after while the starters are on recovery, it’s very hard work every day.
“The games are what people see, but the day-to-day you feel part of it. It might not be in my appearances column on Wikipedia, but I don’t think you get to a final if you’re not one big team working to achieve something. I feel extremely lucky, but there is always that conflict because the dream is to be out there.”
Whiteman admits he learned a lot from the world-class goalkeepers at Spurs
Whiteman had the privilege of working with some of the best goalkeepers in the modern era throughout his stay at Hotspur Way.
He confessed that he learned a lot from watching the likes of Hugo Lloris go about their work and used the opportunity to pick the brains of many of his teammates.
Whiteman added: “I was training with Hugo and he won the World Cup [with France in 2018]. I watched how he evaluated his performances and asked him lots of questions and got advice.
“I had a lot of interesting conversations with Joe Hart too. When he came to Spurs, he’d had a little bit of a turbulent time and seeing the human side, because I saw them almost as God-tier people who nothing could faze, made it seem a bit more, not normal, but attainable.
“You just have to believe in yourself as they do. When I look back at the goalkeepers I’ve been able to work closely with and learn from — Michel Vorm is someone I stay in contact with, Fraser Forster in the last couple of years — it has huge benefits.”
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