Kota Takai will arrive at Tottenham next month after completing a £5million deal from Kawasaki Frontale and he will join a centre-back department stacked with options.
After making Mathys Tel’s loan a permanent £30million move to kick off the Thomas Frank era, Spurs have moved to sign up 20-year-old Takai for what is a J.League record fee for a Japanese player. Despite arriving on a relatively low price tag in Premier League terms, Takai, who turns 21 in September, comes in with far more experience than most of the north London club’s younger signings of recent years.
The 6ft 3ins centre-back has 78 appearances under his belt already for Kawasaki and played a big role in them winning the Japanese Super Cup in 2024, on his way to being named the J.League’s Young Player of the Year. Takai has also played 13 times in the AFC Champions League as a key part of the Kawasaki side that reached the final last month. He won plaudits for his performance in the 3-2 semi-final victory away against an Al-Nassr team featuring Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane and Jhon Duran.
Takai has also played for Japan in four World Cup qualifiers so far – it would have been more but for an adductor injury suffered in October last year – and the youngster is being chosen in a squad containing mainly international team-mates currently playing away in Europe.
So while the price tag might be low, Takai has plenty of experience to back up his potential and is expected to become part of Frank’s first team squad this season with the Dane and his coaching staff set to get a closer look at him next month in pre-season training after green-lighting the deal.
But what does the youngster’s arrival mean for the others in a stacked centre-back department? In terms of senior players there is currently Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven, Kevin Danso, the injured Radu Dragusin and Ben Davies. As a back-up, there is also technically Archie Gray, who had to learn quickly how to become a centre-back last season.
Then there is the highly-rated Luka Vuskovic, who is set to finally arrive at Spurs after turning 18 following loan spells from Hajduk Split in Poland and Belgium. The teenager, also 6ft 3ins, has also been racking up the experience with 61 senior appearances, including a remarkable 11 goals and four assists as a centre-back, and he made his senior Croatia debut this month.
After turning down Manchester City to make the move to Tottenham, the north London club are going to have to be wary of shipping Vuskovic straight out on loan and the message that sends him.
Then there is Ashley Phillips, who turns 20 this Thursday. He was signed from Blackburn in 2023 and has impressed on loan at Plymouth and then Stoke in the Championship, but has not yet looked like breaking into the first team set-up. The same could be said for 20-year-old academy product Alfie Dorrington, who at least got his Premier League debut last season against Southampton before heading off on loan to Aberdeen, where he won the Scottish FA Cup.
Then there are others in the academy looking to progress such as the versatile 21-year-old Dante Cassanova, who signed a new two-year deal last week, and young talents like 17-year-old Malachi Hardy and 16-year-old Junai Byfield.
The centre-back area is currently packed with players for the now and the near future. Some could leave with World Cup winner Cristian Romero linked with a move to La Liga but with uncertainty over whether anyone would pay the required price tag for the Europa League Player of the Season.
Spurs took up the option in Ben Davies’ contract to extend it by another year but that does not rule out a move for the long-serving Welshman if something he wants arises, especially as Takai can also operate on the left on a centre-back pairing.
If Romero were to leave, Tottenham would likely bring in a big name replacement to ensure they have the required quality to compete in the Champions League.
That’s because there are also injuries to take into account over the course of the campaign and Spurs certainly were not prepared for that last season. They lost so many centre-backs that 18-year-old midfielder Gray ended up being drafted into the middle of the defence for three full months of games every three days.
Tottenham will not want to allow a situation like that again and that could mean both Takai and Vuskovic being in and around the first team squad until at least January, particularly with Dragusin expected to be treated cautiously on his eventual return from a cruciate ligament injury.
For Phillips and Dorrington, barring a stunning pre-season that turns Frank’s head, their futures look to lie elsewhere next season with contracts long enough that another loan could lurk on the horizon.
When it comes to Europe there are going to be some disappointed centre-backs as not all of them can fit into what would be a 22-man squad due to Spurs’ club-trained issues.
Frank is going to start pre-season with a big squad while wanting new signings. He will need to make decisions aplenty on where it needs to be trimmed and strengthened and the centre-back department just got a whole lot busier.
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