‘The performance I was hoping for’: Boss wowed by 22-year-old Spurs loanee’s goalscoring heroics

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Tottenham Hotspur loanee Shilow Tracey has come in for big praise following his superb hat-trick last night.

The 22-year-old Spurs academy graduate linked up with Shrewsbury in September, and to date he has made three appearances in all competitions for the League One club.

Admittedly, Tracey has found first-time minutes hard to come by in Shropshire – he’s yet to start in the league and has made just two short cameos off the bench.

However, the Tottenham winger caught the eye in the EFL Trophy win against Crewe, his treble helping Shrewsbury to a superb 4-3 win on the road.

Matthew Millar opened the scoring for the visitors on 17 minutes before Tracey made it two shortly after when he helped Ryan Barnett’s half-volley over the line.

However, Crewe surged back to not only cancel the deficit but take the lead by the hour mark, through Daniel Powell’s brace either side of Offrande Zandala’s 40th-minute equaliser.

Tracey then struck on 76 and 82 minutes for his hat-trick, the former a neat dink over the opposition keeper and the latter a tap-in on the rebound.

The Spurs man’s efforts helped the Shrews finish top of Northern Group C and, after the game, manager Sam Ricketts spoke highly of the player.

“There were some really good individual performances,” he told the club website. “Shilow Tracey started the game very well and it continued all game. He ended up getting his rewards and he’s got the hat-trick ball.

“It was the performance that I was hoping for and he certainly produced tonight. Going to Macclesfield on loan all the way from London tells you a lot about him. Tonight, we saw what Shilow can do. Him and Ryan Barnett were very, very good.”

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While Tracey has got his whole career ahead of him, being out on loan at 22 suggests this is likely his last opportunity to stake a claim for a spot in Spurs’ first-team setup by the summer.

However, he certainly took his chance well last night following a scarcity of minutes in Salop so far, and hopefully he’ll be getting more first-team minutes and starts.

And if he continues on this trajectory, he could potentially give Jose Mourinho food for thought over the coming months and in the summer.