Clement Lenglet: "I’m going up and I hope to go up for a long time"
Clement Lenglet feels he’s on an upward trajectory after what he admits was a tough start to life at Spurs.
The cultured France international joined us on a season-long loan from Barcelona on 8 July - just in time to hook up with the squad for our pre-season tour of Korea.
He made his debut off the bench in our opening day win against Southampton on 6 August but had to wait another month for his first start, an impressive display in our 2-1 win against Fulham on 3 September. He’s now started five of our last six matches in the Premier League and UEFA Champions League and feels he’s getting fully up to speed.
Speaking to SPURSPLAY after our goalless draw against Eintracht Frankfurt on Tuesday evening, Clement told us: “I’m feeling good. I was a little tired at the beginning of the season because the preparation was really tough, and I had to adapt to the intensity of the Premier League and to this group. Now, I’m better. I’m going up and I hope to go up for a long time.”
If he needed a run of games to get to full match sharpness, he’ll certainly get them in the next six weeks. Saturday’s north London derby kick-started a run of 13 matches in 43 days in all competitions, including the conclusion of our UCL group fixtures, a midweek trip to United (19 October) and our first tie in this season’s Carabao Cup at Forest (9 November).
Clement added: “We know we have a lot of games in a few weeks, so we have to recover well. It’s always a pleasure to play games, but difficult as well because we put our bodies at maximum intensity, so it’s always really difficult to finish one game and to be ready for the next.
“We have a good mentality, we are working well, so, I hope in one month, we speak again, and we have won a lot of games in this month ahead - that would be good for the team and for everyone.”