Japhet inspired daily by ‘the King’

It's Christmas, so let’s play a game of ‘who am I’, Spurs style!

Born in east London. Graduated from our Academy to the first team. Made his Premier League debut against Liverpool. In that game, played full-back, rather than a more familiar central defensive role.

Any ideas? It's Ledley King, of course. Well, it’s Ledley and Japhet Tanganga.

Ledley was born in Bow, Japhet in Hackney. Both progressed through our youth system. Both made their Premier League debuts against Liverpool, at full-back. Ledley’s was his full Spurs debut, back in May, 1999. Japhet had featured once in the League Cup before his league bow against the Reds in January.

The similarities are uncanny, and now Japhet, 21, is relishing the opportunity to use all of Ledley’s experience on a daily basis, with our legendary former captain now part of Jose Mourinho’s staff.

Japhet explained: “It’s amazing, honestly, to be able to have this ‘tool’, Ledley’s mindset, whether that’s after training asking for help with certain things you feel you need to work on, and he can give that advice from what he learned throughout his career, or maybe it’s watching a game back and asking him what I could have done better, knowing what he did in his career.

“This is someone who has been in the game for such a long time, you can use his intelligence, his mindset of what he knows and how to improve and that’s not just for me, it’s for the whole defensive unit as well. We can all use him to better ourselves defensively.

“Growing up here and being in the Academy for such a long time, I’ve seen Ledley’s performances and it’s very inspiring to have someone like that who we all watched so much when we were younger being able to help with my career.”