What happened?
James Wilson, the talented Hearts starlet, has revealed that he made the right decision to join Tottenham Hotspur in January. The 19-year-old netted his first top team goal for over a year in Sunday's 6-2 Premier Sports Cup win over Inverness.
Why it matters for Tottenham Hotspur
What comes next?
Wilson's switch to Spurs stunned Scottish football as it arrived right in the middle of the Jambos' thrilling title tilt. Former boss Derek McInnes was adamant moving south to play academy football wasn't the right thing for the then-18-year-old. But Wilson insists regular game time on top of daily sessions training with the array of international stars including Dutch giant Micky Van De Ven has taken him to a new level. Now he's back at Tynecastle and desperate to prove it under Wouter Vrancken.
Wilson said: “Everyone looks at that move as going down to play 21s football. But the experience of training with their first team, being on the bench, the facilities, the physical nature of it. There's loads of things that I picked up on, you're surrounded by amazing players. World-class players that are playing in the Premier League, playing in the World Cup. You learn loads off them. “The link-up play especially. I think you saw that on Sunday, the way I take it in and play it wide. That was something that got drilled into me down at Spurs. It was four months for me. "There was about 10 games (for Hearts) in that period. Or I can get the experience of going down and training with a good Premier League side and getting game time again, which I missed out on in that period before. I feel like I'm a better player for it coming back. I’m just hoping I can show that now.”
Wilson trained regularly with the Spurs top team under Igor Tudor but was more on the fringes when Roberto De Zerbi came in. He said: “Everyone is so physical down there. You see the pure size of the guys, how athletic they are. You try to compete with that. You've got guys like Van de Ven, who's a man-mountain. He's so athletically quick. Being able to play against him, train against him, being able to see that was cool. There's loads of things that I could list on and on. “Under Tudor I was in quite a lot. Then De Zerbi, we just kind of helped them a little bit more, but you're still around it, if that makes sense. You're still in the session, you get to learn off them and see it. That was really cool. Being able to see the different managers, the different styles of play. It was an unbelievable experience.”
McInnes claimed Wilson would have been better placed staying at Hearts and helping fight for the title. Asked if he spoke to McInnes directly before making the move, Wilson said: “Yeah. I wasn't playing at the time, so I wanted to get some minutes. He wanted me to stay, as he came out and said. I just came to the conclusion that for the benefit of myself, I needed to go and play some minutes. I got that at Spurs.”
Now it’s about using the experience to force his way into Vrancken’s thinking. Wilson made a good start on Sunday after climbing off the bench at the interval to replace the ineffective
League standing (final 2025 table -- new season not yet under way): 17th in Premier League, 41 pts, 10W-11D-17L from 38 games, recent form WLDWW.
Goals this season: 48 scored, 57 conceded (-9 goal difference).
Title race: 44 points behind leaders Arsenal.
