No 18-year-old has played as many minutes in the Premier League as Archie Gray this season, and the vast majority of them have been out of position. So when asked where he sees himself playing long term, he raises a smile.
“To be honest,” he tells The i Paper, “I don’t really know myself.”
“I always trust the manager. He knows best and wherever he thinks to put me on the pitch or bring me on in the game, I’ll back that 100 per cent. I’m an 18-year-old – he knows the game a lot better than I do.”
The age bears repeating because that is one of the curious things about Gray, a simultaneous mix of maturity and consciousness of just how young he is.
His first season at Tottenham Hotspur has been a turbulent one, but he is perhaps the epitome of an Ange Postecoglou player: youthful and at the same time fearless.
Angeball has had its critics with Spurs losing 14 of their 27 league games in 2024-25, amidst an injury crisis that has seen Gray deployed at centre-back, left-back, occasionally in midfield and rarely in his more regular role at right-back. Yet he believes the process is working.
“It’s amazing the football that we play,” he says. “It suits the players that we’ve got and it’s such enjoyable football to play. It brings us the results, obviously we’ve had difficult times in the season but that’s football, for every team that [bad runs of results] comes as well. I’m enjoying it and it’s such an amazing style of football to be playing.
“To me it doesn’t matter what position it is, I’m on the pitch and I’m playing football. Ultimately it’s just a game of football and you’re against 11 players and I’m grateful that the manager’s trusted me.”
Unlike most of his teammates, Gray does have an advantage when it comes to Postecoglou’s physical demands.
In his year in the Championship with Leeds, he played every league match, including the play-off final – starting 43 times. That is an almost unprecedented workload for a player of his age, but it has helped him adapt to the notorious intensity of training at Hotspur Way.
“I always enjoy stuff like that. I always do a lot of fitness work in pre-season, so I was preparing myself well for those sessions, I was always looking forward to them. Working hard every day and doing the extras will always pay off.
“The amount of games in the Championship, especially with the cup competitions we had and going to the play-offs last year, it was a lot of games. And for a 17, 18-year-old you can only wish to play that amount of games and I was lucky that I did.
“To have Daniel Farke last year trust me in those different positions, it was a great experience for me.”
It was not supposed to end the way it did, Farke nursing Gray’s head as he cried into his shoulder at full-time of the play-off final. Defeat to Southampton would prove his last game for the club he joined as an under-9. But there is no disputing that the move has paid off, and on Thursday, he was named Men’s Young Player of the Year at the London Football Awards.
Gray was still barely old enough to buy a drink when he left home to move to the capital on his own; while he is a first-generation Spur, he left behind three generations of Leeds stars – father Andy, grandfather Frank, and great-uncle Eddie, all of whom played for the club before him.
“It was difficult at the start,” he admits. “Moving away from the family is always tough, and all my friends. But after a month or two it was easy to settle in, especially with the bunch of lads we’ve got and the coaches, they all helped me. I definitely feel really settled with the group and with the fans at the club – and I’ve always got people visiting me.”
There has been advice too, most of it typical of the wisdom given to young footballers – “keeping my head down, working hard and being patient, and when my opportunity comes, take it. When you’re not playing, just working hard every day in training and doing the extras”.
The Grays are not the only ones to have taken him under their wing. Given the age gap, he acknowledges that Spurs’ senior players do not have to go out of their way to socialise with him.
“Ben Davies has helped me out a lot, Madders [James Maddison], Sonny, Brennan [Johnson] as well. They’ve all helped me out so much. At the start, they’d all have breakfast with me and speak to me and make me feel comfortable.”
Former Spurs boss Harry Redknapp is among those who has tipped Gray to join that leadership group one day – he has, Redknapp suggested, all the makings of a Tottenham captain.
“It’s way too early to think about it,” the teenager insists. “Sonny being the captain, he’s such a great leader. All of them are, Madders was captain the other day, they’re all role models in different ways and we’re lucky to have them.”
Nor is he entertaining rumours he is in the running for Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad, which is set to be announced in the coming weeks. Gray was at the centre of a tug-of-war between Scotland, for whom his footballing relatives played, and England, but has recently indicated he will declare for the latter.
Tuchel’s appointment has coincided with his Spurs breakthrough but he is not prepared to be distracted by it as Spurs head into the Europa League knockouts. “I’m just completely focused on the next game,” Gray says.
“We’ve got so many tough games ahead of us. I’m not even thinking about it [England] at all.”
If his form continues, he may well be alone in that.