The foe you know - Barnsley's Zeki Fryers
Mon 18 September 2017, 14:13|
Tottenham Hotspur
Continuing our new feature for 2017-18 entitled ‘The foe you know’, where we look at former Spurs players who now represent this week's opponents. Today, Barnsley defender Zeki Fryers.
An England youth international, left-back Zeki Fryers came up through the ranks at Manchester United and made six first team appearances for the Old Trafford club, including one in the UEFA Champions League, before heading to Belgium to join Standard Liege in 2012.
He joined us in January, 2013, and played 14 times for our Development Squad for the remainder of that season, scoring once in a 4-2 home win over Arsenal.
He stepped up into first team reckoning at the start of 2013-14 and made his debut as a second-half substitute for Kyle Walker in our 3-0 home victory over Dinamo Tbilisi in the Europa League play-off round in August, 2013.
He featured largely in the Europa League over the following months while also playing another nine times for the Development Squad, but he suffered a disappointing Premier League debut in our colours, coming on at half-time in our 5-0 home defeat to Liverpool in December, 2013.
One of his most memorable performances came back on the European stage under Tim Sherwood in March, 2014. Visiting Benfica in the Europa League round of 16, trailing 3-1 from the first leg and suffering from a central defensive crisis, Zeki was deployed as an emergence centre-half alongside midfielder Sandro. A brace from Nacer Chadli gave us a real chance of progressing at one point, but a late penalty put paid to our hopes of going through.
The last of Zeki's 16 senior appearances for us came in a 1-0 win at Stoke City in April, 2014, before a transfer to Crystal Palace at the end of that summer's transfer window. He would go on to make 14 appearances for Palace while spending time out on loan at Rotherham United and Ipswich Town before making the move to Barnsley this summer.
He appeared in Barnsley's matchday squad for the first time over the weekend when he was named among the substitutes for their 3-0 home defeat at the hands of Aston Villa.
Aside from Zeki, our former youth team graduate Jamie Clapham also now works for Barnsley as First Team Coach. His one and only Premier League appearance for us came as a first-half substitute for Andy Sinton in a 2-1 home defeat by Coventry City in May, 1997. After loan spells at Leyton Orient, Bristol Rovers and Ipswich Town, he left us for the latter club in 1998. He later played for Birmingham City, Wolves and Leicester City among other clubs.
Tickets for Tuesday night's Carabao Cup third round tie with Barnsley are on general sale. Click here for more information and to buy.
