‘I’ve still got a long way to go’ – Kyle stays grounded after dream debut

Kyle Walker-Peters was told on Saturday that he would be making his Spurs debut in front of over 50,000 fans at St James’ Park. Just 24 hours later, he was talking about a debut football dreams are made of.

Kyle, 20, a local lad born just down the road from White Hart Lane in Edmonton, started the match, helped us to what is always an important win on opening weekend, helped us keep a clean sheet and was then named Man of the Match.

He walked back into the changing rooms, Man of the Match trophy under one arm, to warm applause and then gave a speech, thanking everyone, to earn another ovation.

“I found out (about starting) on Saturday during training, before we did some tactical work,” Kyle told us. “The initial feeling was excitement and a bit of nerves but today I just tried to keep cool and the boys helped me get through.

“I had great support from the Spurs fans and that helps as well.

“Newcastle targeted me from the start and that’s fair enough, I was making my debut. I think I dealt with that quite well. I won my first header and from there, you get a bit of confidence and the main thing was to get off to a good start in the Premier League.

“I was delighted to get Man of the Match, it was a dream come true. In my speech I just said thanks to the manager for having faith in me and thanks to all the players and staff for helping me get to that stage of my career. Now it’s time to kick on and keep improving.”

It takes a lot of steps to make it from the Academy to the pinnacle of the Premier League. As he well knows, Kyle now has another battle – to stay in and around the team and make more appearances.

“I’ll keep training hard and hopefully I’ll get more opportunities,” he added. “If I do, I hope to take them.

“Every day you go out on the training pitch you have to prove to the manager and the players that they can trust you. I’ve still got a long way to go and I’m not going to get ahead of myself, I’ll keep working hard.”