The young Tottenham Hotspur coach has been rising up the football ladder and will now take another step with a switch to a promoted Premier League club
Stuart Lewis will be leaving his role on Tottenham’s coaching staff, helping Roberto De Zerbi’s squad, to join Ipswich
Stuart Lewis is set to leave Tottenham to become a first team coach at newly-promoted Premier League side Ipswich Town, football.london understands.
The highly-rated 38-year-old, who gained his UEFA Pro Licence this year, was promoted from the academy set-up last summer into a newly-created role as first team academy transition coach under then head coach Thomas Frank. Lewis retained that role under both Igor Tudor and then Roberto De Zerbi as he helped the young players adapt in training to the first team set-up.
However, football.london understands that Ipswich approached Lewis and Tottenham this summer to bring him across to work with their first team under new boss Gary O’Neill and the young coach has decided to take that step up to work with senior players on a consistent basis as he continues his development.
Lewis’ star rose at Spurs as their under-18s coach. With him at the helm the club won three trophies in as many seasons in the U18 Premier League Cup as well as twice lifting the U17 version of the competition. They did so by playing a sweeping, attacking brand of football that fitted the club’s ethos.
During his time with that age group, Lewis oversaw the development of a string of academy players who went on to make their debut for the first team, including the likes of Luca Williams-Barnett, Jun’ai Byfield, Mikey Moore, Will Lankshear, Jamie Donley, Alfie Dorrington, Damola Ajayi and Callum Olusesi.
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Many have long tipped Lewis to be the next to make the step up from Tottenham’s academy levels to senior management and follow in the footsteps of Matt Wells and Ryan Mason as well as Kieran McKenna, who recently left Ipswich after guiding them to promotion.
Tottenham’s sporting director Johan Lange had explained the appointment of Lewis to his hybrid role at the club last summer.
“To strengthen even more the bond between the first team and the academy is something that we have worked hard on for a number of years and with this new hire of Stuart coming into this new role we believe that it will be even even stronger in the years to come because we have some very, very exciting young players that will come through, push in the upcoming years and they need maybe a little bit of special attention as well to bridge that big gap that it is to go from academy football to the Premier League,” said the Dane.
“We’ve had Dean Brill coming into a new role as assistant goalkeeper coach, he was head of academy goalkeeper coaching. Again, it shows that we want to show both players but also staff that not only coaches, can also be in the medical, performance analysis, scouting, in all the departments, that if you are coming into our academy, getting the DNA under the skin that we can have good, exciting pathways for coaches, specialists in this football club.”
Now Lewis will take on his first full senior coaching at Ipswich after acting as the go-between for Spurs’ academy and the first team. The north London club will not doubt be keeping a close eye on his progress in the years ahead.
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