Kyle Walker has admitted that he has been a fan of one Tottenham Hotspur man for several years and praised him for the manner in which he has stepped up through the club’s injury crisis this season.
At the start of the season, hardly a single Spurs fan would have predicted that Djed Spence would be in contention for the Player of the Season award, but the full-back now stands a decent shot of winning it given the strides he has made in 2025.
The 24-year-old would have felt extremely hard done by to be left out of Thomas Tuchel’s England squad, given how well he has performed at both left-back and right-back this season.
Spence has even been urged to change his national allegiance after being overlooked by Tuchel, but the defender believes that the Tottenham man’s time is coming.
Kyle Walker says Djed Spence was unlucky to miss out on England
With Walker being from Sheffield and having come through the Blades academy, he admits that he had his eye on Spence right from his loan spell at Bramall Lane in the 2021-22 season.
The former Tottenham Hotspur man praised his fellow full-back for the way he has taken every challenge in his stride this season and admitted that he was unlucky to miss out on the recent Three Lions squad.
When asked about Spence, Walker said on his BBC podcast: “From hearing it from your fellow footballing, you know, players that they look up to you, obviously, I think personally from me coming back to him on his career, again, you know, he’s had a few setbacks from coming back from obviously flying at Nottingham Forest, signing for Tottenham, then going out on loan. But I think this season especially, he’s played out of position at times with Tottenham’s, you know, injury crisis. Yeah.
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“And he’s kind of, yeah, he’s just took it in his stride. And I saw him actually play at Nottingham Forest. And I thought ‘this one’s going to be a good one’. And you can see a Premier League team snapping him up. Did I know it would be my old team? No.
“But I think that he’s doing fantastically well this season, probably unlucky not to get a senior call-up to the England team. But if he was there, probably have taken my space. So just hold off for, you know, five more games.”
Tottenham teammates wax lyrical about Spence
A number of the full-back’s Tottenham teammates have spoken very highly of him this season.
Last week, Destiny Udogie lauded Spence for the season he is having and admitted that he and the Englishman help each other out with pointers even though they are sometimes competing for the same left-back slot.