Tottenham set to sign Japan international defender Kota Takai
Club sources indicate that an agreement for the 20-year-old Japan international has been reached for £5million ($6.8m, 1billion Japanese yen), which would represent a record fee for a player in the J League — the top division of Japanese football — moving overseas.
Advertisement
Takai, who is into the final six months of his contract at Kawasaki Frontale, has played 28 times at club level in 2025 and has also made four appearances for Japan.
Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven established themselves as the first choice central defensive pairing at Spurs under previous head coach Ange Postecoglou, while Radu Dragusin and Kevin Danso are the other recognised centre-backs in the squad.
However, multiple injury setbacks in 2024- 25 meant Archie Gray, a midfielder by trade, was deployed in the centre of defence.
Danso and Mathys Tel, who both arrived on loan deals from Lens and Bayern Munich respectively in January, have each made their moves to Spurs permanent this summer, while teenage defender Luka Vuskovic will join Spurs from Hajduk Split after a deal was agreed in 2023.
()
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
New signings aren't always the solution. Maybe unhappy managers should try coaching?
Football quite often shows that it isn't aware of its own absurdity, and a prime example of that came last week when Enzo Maresca was discussing Levi Colwill's knee injury. Colwill is likely to miss most of the season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament, which given he started 35 league games in the 2024-25 campaign, is enough to put a wrinkle in anyone's plans. Advertisement Maresca's immediate solution was to suggest that Todd Boehly further loosened the already pretty loose Chelsea purse strings and furnish him with a new signing to plug the gap. 'The club know exactly what I think,' he told the media. 'I think we need a central defender. We are looking for an internal solution but as I said, the club know exactly what I think.' However, his reasoning wasn't that he's short of bodies at centre-back — he has five others, six if you include new signing Jorrel Hato, who can play in the middle but has spent much of his young career at left-back. Seven if you include the excommunicated Axel Disasi. Eight if you include youngster Aaron Anselmino. His reasoning was seemingly that none of those five/six/seven/eight other centre-backs can do the very specific job he demands. Maresca did concede that the other options 'can adapt', but he made his thoughts perfectly clear on what he thinks should happen. 'You know how important Levi was last season, for the way we want to play,' Maresca explained. 'We said many times that we can create chances and to attack in the right way, if we can build in the right way. Levi was a huge part of our build-up and now he is out. 'We build with Levi in the middle. Last year, we played 64 games and we played 64 games with Levi and Tosin (Adarabioyo). 'Now Levi is out, the only one who can do that job well is Tosin. Also, we have players who, unfortunately, like Wesley Fofana or Benoit Badiashile, have some problems (with injury) and this is why I said that the club knows exactly what I think about central defenders.' On the most basic level, the idea of the Chelsea manager — one who has seen 20 senior signings arrive in his tenure for a total of around £483million ($653m), based on figures from Transfermarkt — solemnly declaring he needs to sign more players, is pretty funny. Advertisement But it points to a wider trend. Tim Spiers detailed the number of current Premier League managers who have complained publicly that they want their club to pull their fingers out and sign more players, some of whom have a point. Some squads are looking pretty thin: Fulham have only signed a reserve goalkeeper; Nottingham Forest have signed striker Arnaud Kalimuendo from Rennes but still need a deeper pool to cope with European football. For others, it's difficult to take them seriously. Ruben Amorim, for example, plays with such a defined style that Manchester United have been forced to completely overhaul their attack to suit his needs, which doesn't include spending an initial £25m on Patrick Dorgu, a specialist wing-back, in January. And now they are casting around for a new midfielder, while Kobbie Mainoo sat unused on the bench against Arsenal on Sunday. This is a quite reductive response, but the immediate reaction to a lot of the unhappiness from managers over transfers is: 'Guys, have you tried coaching?' It's very easy for a civilian to say something like that, but it sometimes feels like some managers are straying close to the attitude that many fans seem to have, that the transfer market is the game, that the solution to any problem is to spend some money, rather than work with what they have. Which is especially odd considering the many examples of their peers improvising, adapting, repurposing players to fit a role as required. Pep Guardiola is famous for moving full-backs into midfield, central defenders to full-back, No 10s to the wing, midfielders into defence. One of the key tenets of Liverpool winning the Premier League last season was not new arrivals, but remodelling existing players: Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz. Amorim did this at Sporting CP, notably with the Chelsea-bound Geovany Quenda, who was a winger but became a wing-back. Advertisement In a different way, Aston Villa's starting XI against Newcastle United at the weekend illustrated the point. Seven of them were there when Unai Emery arrived at the club in 2022, and it would have been eight had Emi Martinez not been suspended. This emphasised two things. Firstly, that Emery has done a phenomenal job in improving the squad he inherited from Steven Gerrard, of enhancing the individuals and forming them into a cohesive whole. But secondly, it wasn't a particularly great endorsement of their transfer policy over the last couple of years. Villa have signed 22 senior players since Emery was appointed, and to have only four in the starting line-up — Martinez's new back-up Marco Bizot, Youri Tielemans, Andre Onana and Morgan Rogers — suggests that, among other things, new arrivals are not always the answer. It's also partly a problem related to managerial inflexibility. If Maresca was a bit more adaptable, maybe he could put together a team without another central defender of Colwill's profile. If Amorim would entertain the idea of playing in another formation, perhaps he could have worked with some of the players that were already at United. If a system or way of playing is so delicate that a manager needs a new player when one element of it doesn't quite work, then maybe the problem is with the system, or even the manager, rather than the players or the recruitment. There's also a broader element to this, relating to the general state of the football industry. The excess of the transfer market should not be encouraged more than it already is, partly for football reasons, but it relates to us as fans too. We have seen a number of clubs use the excuse that they 'need to remain competitive' when they raise ticket prices, essentially guilt-tripping fans into paying more and more: want some extra signings, do you? That will be an extra 20 per cent on your tickets, thank you. Advertisement In reality, there's very little connection between ticket prices and transfer fees, but as long as the clubs try to make that connection, and managers continue to look at the transfer market to solve every problem, we're left with the impression that we're paying for their inflexibility. There's a clear element of (potentially subconscious) self-preservation at play here from managers: it's easier to purchase a plug-and-play recruit than it is to train someone else up. In a world where a manager's standing and job security can change in weeks, it's clear why they might want an established player, rather than a project. It's also handy to have a tale of recruitment woe in your back pocket in case it all goes wrong: what could they possibly expect me to do with that squad? This is not a suggestion that the transfer market should grind to a halt and that new players cannot enhance a team. It's not even a suggestion that managers shouldn't put pressure on their clubs to recruit sensibly, when it's required. Just that the transfer market is not the only solution to everything, and perhaps more managers should try other things before pushing the big red transfer button. (Top Photo by Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Quote of the Day: Games Show Robots' Potential, But Your Job Is Safe, for Now
'The robots are still dumb.' ALAN FERN, robotics professor at Oregon State, on how the Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing — featuring running, kickboxing and soccer — highlight advancements, and limitations, in robotics.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Iowa State football: Cornerbacks coach Hank Poteat on transfer Tre Bell
Iowa State football cornerbacks coach Hank Poteat discussed the progress of Lindenwood transfer Tre Bell
