Jack Roles had not been at Cambridge United for less than 24 hours, yet the League Two side are already amazed with what they have seen from the Tottenham youngster.
The 20-year-old midfielder joined the U’s on a half-season loan deal this week, and in his debut for Colin Calderwood’s side Roles was quick to make a good impression, starring for the club in their 3-2 win against Scunthorpe to send Cambridge to third in the League Two table.
The Spurs youngster impressed so much that the Cambridge United Twitter account was unsure why the Premier League side had sent them a wizard instead of a football player, a post that both United and Tottenham fans universally agreed on.
Indeed, Roles is no wizard, at least of the fantasy type, but the Enfield-born midfielder certainly knows how to bring the magic onto the football pitch, something he has been doing with Tottenham’s youth teams for quite some time.
An all-rounder with a keen eye for goal, Roles has been part of the north London side set-up since the age of six, flourishing for the youth sides as his football education progressed, with the youngster eventually making his first-team debut this summer for Tottenham in the International Champions Cup.
However, with the summer signings of Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso, breaking into an already stacked Tottenham team was always going to be difficult for Roles despite contributing to 44 goals in 72 youth appearances for Spurs over the past three years, and so the decision to send him out on loan was made.
With the youngster already impressing in his first-ever professional game, it is likely that Roles name will be talked about more often in the Spurs fan base as well as the overall conversation of promising English talents emerging this season, despite his international affiliation with Cyprus, a county he has played for at both U-19 and U-21 level.
Having made such a positive impression in his debut for Cambridge, Roles can build upon his first taste of professional football and continue his form that has made him such a highly rated youngster at Spurs, and in the not too distant future, Tottenham could have yet another homegrown talent ready to take on the Premier League’s elite.