Around this time last year I wrote an article on Spurs’ Academy defender Marqes Muir. The 19 year old central defender has since had his first full season with the Spurs Development side, making 15 competitive appearances for Wayne Burnett’s side. The Lambeth born second year professional can play on either side of central defence, although he often plays on the right side of central defence. However, Marqes has also played at right-back on a couple of occasions for the Spurs Under 18 side, in the past. And while playing in that position, I thought that he did really well. Although as a central defender, the player who has been at the Spurs Academy for over 11 years, is a real footballing centre-half, who likes to bring the ball out from the defence, with good skill and pace. Last season Marqes had some very good matches for the Spurs Under 21 side, and even though he did have some times out of the team, it would have been a very good experience as a first year professional to play a good amount of Premier League 2 football.

In a 1-0 Premier League 2 fixture away to Everton in early 2022, Marqes had a really good all-round game, and he was very assured in his defending, but also composed on the ball, and at bringing it out from defence. Marqes Muir started the final three Premier League 2 fixtures of the 2021/22 season for the Spurs Under 21 side. And in those last three matches, both he and the slightly more experienced Malachi Fagan-Walcott, had in my opinion three very good games in central defence. Marqes has got a lot of pace to his game, he reads the game very well and is consistently good at getting to the ball before and in front of forwards. In addition to his impressive ability on the ball and passing ability, Marqes Muir has good positioning on the pitch, and he is a very brave defender who is so good at making important blocks. In the final Premier League 2 game of last season, when Spurs faced a Chelsea side who needed to win that game to avoid relegation from Divison One, Marqes really impressed. He made some really good blocks, and his positioning and reading of the game alongside Malachi Fagan-Walcott, was good.

Marqes’ first match of this pre-season for the Spurs Under 21 side, came in a pre-season friendly with Enfield Town, last week. Marqes completed 61 minutes of that game, and he had to defend against a tall and physical Enfield forward, who really tried to distract Marqes. However, Marqes stayed tight when he needed to, to the Enfield Town forward, and I thought that he was intelligent in his all-round defending. Even though the 19 year old defender has a very good jumping reach, he wasn’t going to win headers against the very tall forward, but he did his very best to try and make sure that he (the Enfield forward) didn’t have an easy job at winning headers. I’m a big fan of Marqes Muir as a central defender, and I really like the way that he defends, and I also think that he has a very promising future in the game. I personally think that Marqes will make a really good number of appearances for the Spurs Under 21 side this season, and that is something that I will write more on in my preview of the Spurs Under 21 for the 2022/23 season. I’m not sure if he is also still eligible to play for the Spurs Under 19 side in the UEFA Youth League this season, but I would like to wish Marqes all the very best of luck for the new season. Spurs’ Under 21 side face Bromley in their next pre-season friendly, which is on Wednesday.