New signing Parrott wants to emulate Robbie Keane


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Young striker Troy Parrott is reportedly signing for Spurs

The Irish Sun are reporting that Tottenham Hotspur have beaten Chelsea to the signing of Republic of Ireland Under-15 international striker Troy Parrott.

He recently spent nearly a week away with the national side playing two games against Holland, a technically better and physically stronger group of players. Parrott played in both games and scored a goal in the first, although the Irish lost 5-1. The second game finished a 1-1 draw.

His goal in the first game brought the Irish back into it at 2-1, but the prolific Parrott didn't celebrate as he explained to the Belvedere FC website.

“My goal made it 2-1 and it felt great to score for my country but I didn't think of celebrating, I just got the ball and ran back to the centre circle to try to get on with the game.”

International experience at this level is not just about turning up, having a few training sessions and playing a game, there is a lot the youngsters have to get used to off the pitch as well. There are regular team meetings, talks to help the players individually, talks with units of players to help them work together on the pitch and then team meetings overall.

Parrott again explained his experience and how the Republic of Ireland managed to improve the from the 5-1 defeat on Tuesday to the 1-1 draw on Thursday.

“We did some video work and had a team meeting to go over a few things from the first game to help us learn from our mistakes and that definitely helped us in the second match. We went 1-0 up and could have won the game. We were so much better on Thursday but unfortunately didn't get the win.”

A real highlight for Parrott was the arrival of Ireland’s all-time top goalscorer and former Tottenham Hotspur striker Robbie Keane. He joined former Blackburn Rovers and Fulham winger Damien Duff, who isnow a coach at Shamrock Rovers, and head coach Jason Donohue for a session at Abbotstown before the team flew to Holland.

“It was great to train with Robbie. He's achieved so much and I hope to do something similar, him and Damien Duff link up so well together and they still have so many skills in their locker, it was kind of strange to have them actually playing in the session, there’s not too many lads our age who can say they’ve trained with those too.”