Djed Spence has turned a corner in his career at Tottenham Hotspur under Ange Postecoglou
Tottenham Hotspur have won two Premier League games in a row for the first time this season. indeed, Spurs beat Manchester United 1-0 last Sunday—a fortnight on from their 2-0 away win over Brentford, and with key players returning back from injury problems, things are looking up for Ange Postecoglou.
Djed Spence was a standout performer in the Lilywhites’ win over Man United and received great praise from Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp after the game. The full-back has enjoyed a new lease of life in recent weeks and months at the club, scooping two Man of the Match awards in each of his last two Premier League appearances. And three years on from joining the North Londoners, he is finally getting a chance to prove himself.
The 24-year-old hasn’t had the easiest of times since arriving at Tottenham. Former Spurs boss Antonio Conte made it clear back in 2022 that Djed Spence was not his signing, and the two even barely spoke to each other. Ange Postecoglou froze him out for the opening three months of the season before a defensive injury crisis forced him to include the full-back in his squad. He was also not named in the club’s Europa League’s league phase squad.
Now, the Athletic journalist Jay Harris claims Spence’s loan move to Genoa helped him to mature both as a person and footballer. He revealed that the loan experience in Italy helped the former England youth international realise he needed to ‘knuckle down’ to succeed at the highest level.
“I’ve spoken to people who know him quite well, and they’ve said that Spence is a bit introverted, and he can be quite aloof,” Jay Harris said on The View from The Lane podcast.
“And so there are times when people probably have misinterpreted that as him not caring or him having a bad attitude. But I think what we’re seeing before us now is a 24-year-old who was a young boy.”
“He’s a young man now. Apparently, during his time in Italy with Genoa, that was quite a powerful experience for him because Leeds didn’t work out for a number of different issues, but mainly because he had quite a bad knee injury, which ruled him out, I think, for two and a half months, three months in total.
“So, he’s gone from barely getting a game in the championship to playing at the San Siro twice with Genoa. And so he’s returning to Spurs, and he’s thinking, wow, if I want to kick on with my career at the highest level, I seriously need to knuckle down. He did that.”
Spence was linked with a permanent exit from White Hart Lane last year but managed to convince Big Ange to give him a chance with the senior squad. The Englishman has been reborn as a player under Big Ange’s guidance, starting in six of the last eight games and also impressing against Man United last weekend. He has made 18 appearances across all competitions thus far, registering three goal involvements.
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Spence’s rise has caught the attention of the fans, media and pundits, with BBC presenter Gary Lineker tipping him to make the England squad under Thomas Tuchel for the World Cup Qualifiers next month.
The 24-year-old is certainly now the Greek-Australian tactician’s first-choice full-back even with Destiny Udogie back fit and Pedro Porro also available, and that speaks volumes about how far he has come in his Tottenham career.
