Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday fell flat with Spurs wonderkid – look where he is now | OneFootball

Josh Onomah is now playing at Dinamo Tbilisi after a bizarre career that involved stints in the EFL with a few clubs.

Josh Onomah was once a rising star at Tottenham Hotspur and seemingly destined for a sustained Premier League career but it hasn’t worked out that way.

The EFL has produced many talents who promised much but didn’t quite fulfil their potential at a young age but Josh Onomah’s story is a different one because the EFL instead is a place where he failed to revive his career.

Once a wonderkid at Tottenham at a time when plenty of players came through the ranks and kicked on into the first-team, Onomah was expected to be the next.

Instead, his career has seen him travel through the EFL with the likes of Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday to no great avail and now he is experiencing a very different time of it from where he may have expected to be.

Josh Onomah’s rise through the ranks at Tottenham

Having come through the academy at Tottenham Hotspur, Josh Onomah turned professional at White Hart Lane in 2015 and looked set to for a place in the first-team picture.

In fact, Onomah made his debut in the FA Cup in January 2015 before going on to make 19 appearances across all competitions the following season.

A talented dribbler and someone who could drive forward with the ball from midfield, the youngster was carving himself out a spot in Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs squad.

Pochettino had been someone who had developed and nurtured young talent throughout his time at Tottenham with the likes of Harry Winks, Eric Dier, Dele Alli and Harry Kane, as well as Ryan Mason, either coming through the ranks and becoming key first-teamers or having been signed young and developed into stalwarts during his tenure.

That provided seemingly a natural pathway for Onomah but fewer appearances in the 2-16-17 season saw Spurs opt to get him regular minutes elsewhere and so he was to be loaned out to Aston Villa.

Underwhelming development in the EFL for Josh Onomah

In the 2017-18 season, Aston Villa went into the second of what would be a three-year stint in the Championship as they finished fourth and were beaten by Fulham in the play-off final under the management of Steve Bruce.

Bruce had brought Onomah in to much excitement with a belief he could be a fulcrum of their promotion-challenging campaign with a fairly quiet summer transfer window that brought in the experience of John Terry, Chris Samba, Ahmed Elmohamady and Glenn Whelan; as well as goalkeeper Sam Johnstone and Robert Snodgrass on loan.

In an ageing setup, Onomah was expected to be the dynamic and youthful force that would balance the profile of the squad well and be the gem in the middle of the park – but that is not what came to fruition.

Onomah made a bright enough start with a run of five successive starts, including a goal in a 1-1 draw against Bristol City, but soon enough he would find himself on the periphery of things and even an unused substitute for much of the second half of the campaign.

In fact, of his 33 appearances, Onomah made 20 Villa starts in the Championship but only five of those starts came after the turn of the year, albeit finishing the campaign well with a notable brace in a 4-0 defeat of Ipswich Town in the run-in.

Despite that finish, he managed just 17 minutes off the bench in the final of their entire play-off campaign and the versatile midfielder was forced into a step down with a lower key loan move to Sheffield Wednesday.

Still viewed as a bit of a coup for The Owls, Onomah and his rhythm was undone by Jos Luhakay, who had been a surprise appointment that summer.

Having been on the periphery, he scored two goals in two full 90 minutes against West Bromwich Albion and again Bristol City before being an unused substitute in Wednesday’s next game – a 2-1 defeat at home to Middlesbrough.

Eventually a knee injury disrupted the second half of his season as he went on to make just four appearances in the Championship from Boxing Day onwards.

Josh Onomah has now left Dinamo Tbilisi

Flashes of quality and a glimpse of what he was capable of still left suitors and, involved in a deal that took Ryan Sessegnon to Spurs, Onomah left Tottenham on a permanent basis to join Fulham in the summer of 2019.

Onomah would contribute to Fulham’s two promotion-winning campaigns, including scoring Fulham's opener in a 2-0 victory away at Cardiff City in the first-leg of their play-off semi-final in the 2019-20 season, and the 2021-22 season but the form of others, notably Tom Cairney and then Fabio Carvalho, often saw him down the pecking-order before failing to make any real impression in the Premier League on both occasions.

That led him to a permanent move away from Craven Cottage in January 2023, moving to Preston North End for a short stint before a trial at Stoke City and then training with Bolton Wanderers during the 2023-24 season when he remained without a club.

Blackpool took a chance on him in the 2024-25 season but his career had quickly and quite strangely unravelled from being an inconsistent but promising prospect to injury-ridden and struggling for a club.

After another lengthy period without a club, Ononah moved to Georgian giants Dinamo Tbilisi in March 2026 but he has found himself in and out of the side, failing to find his form or even a preferred position, having even been shifted out to right-back for their Super Cup loss to champions Iberia 1999 before his departure in July.

An England youth international throughout the age groups and someone who shot onto the scene at a team known for its development of talent, Onomah is proof that that development is not always linear as he embarks upon another period without a club at the age of just 29.