Japhet Tanganga loving life in Tottenham first team after man of the match display in FA Cup replay win

1/41
Malik Ouzia @MalikOuzia_14 January 2020

Tottenham defender Japhet Tanganga once again seized his chance to impress in the Spurs first team and then declared: ‘I’m just loving it!’

The 20-year-old was handed a surprise Premier League debut in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Liverpool, and did not look out of his depth up against the champions-elect.

Jose Mourinho proved his inclusion for that game was no one-off, keeping the youngster in his side for Tuesday night’s FA Cup third round replay against Middlesbrough.

Despite being partly to blame for Boro’s late goal, Tanganga was named man-of-the-match in a 2-1 win that sets up a fourth round meeting with Southampton.

The full-back came close to opening his Spurs account with a low strike midway through the first half
REUTERS

"I am just grateful,” he told the BBC. “I am grateful to the gaffer for trusting me. I am grateful to my team-mates encouraging me. I hope the gaffer picks me for the next game but whenever he picks me I am ready.

"I am just enjoying it. The fans are lovely, stadium is brilliant. I just love it."

Spurs were in cruise control for much of the game, and led through first-half goals from Argentinian pair Giovanni Lo Celso and Erik Lamela, the latter making his first start under Mourinho.

However, they failed to put the game to bed, and George Saville’s late strike set up a nervy finale.

“We had chances but you’re not always going to score them,” Tanganga added. “It was a sloppy goal, we shouldn’t have conceded that, we made it hard for ourselves.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in