Having been discarded upon arrival by Antonio Conte and ignored for 18 months by Ange Postecoglou, Djed Spence was eyeing an exit from Tottenham this month.
He has long been labeled a misfit, dismissed as another costly mistake in the transfer market. And yet, Spence has become vital as Postecoglou mends his team and tries to salvage something tangible from the season.
Destiny Udogie is the latest Spurs defender to be felled by injury, ruled out for two months with a hamstring tear, and illness sweeps the camp ahead of Saturday lunchtime game against Newcastle.
For Spence, it has presented an unexpected final opportunity to forge a career at Tottenham.
“It's really exhausted,” Postecoglou said. 'In difficult times, you get opportunities that may not have occurred. The reality is that with everyone healthy he might not have had the opportunity and in January we would be seeing a different scenario for him.
'He is performing very well. It's very important to us, especially now that Destiny is going down. Not because he is available but because he played well and had an impact.
Tottenham's Djed Spence has earned an unexpected last chance to forge a career at the club.
The full-back, long considered a misfit, has become vital under Ange Postecoglou
He joined Spurs for £20m but was loaned out for Postecoglou and Antonio Conte.
“Maybe he feels the opportunity to become not only part of Tottenham permanently in his own mind, where he feels settled, but now he is pushing to be a starting player and I think he has the ability to do that.”
Spence, 24, arrived from Middlesbrough in the summer of 2022 in a deal worth up to £20m after a promotion season while on loan at Nottingham Forest, but Conte made it abundantly clear he was a “club signing.” “and I didn't want it.
Spence was loaned out to Rennes and, under Postecoglou, to Leeds and Genoa, appearing more marginalized with each move. When he was excluded from this season's Europa League squad despite remaining at Spurs, it seemed clear that any form of reintegration was limited and that his long-term future would lie elsewhere.
He probably still is, but if this is his last chance, then Spence is doing everything he can to make it count.
“I don't think anything was missing,” Postecoglou said. 'Maybe in the past I was a little impatient. Maybe his attitude wasn't very good in terms of not playing and not feeling like a regular.
“This year he had to wait for the right moment. He has done it in the best possible way. He trained hard every day without much prospect of playing. He has waited for his opportunity.
'Now, when he has it, he has grown. Some of that is also maturity. He is no longer a young boy. He probably feels that if he is going to have a career at Tottenham, now is the time to do it. I think he already did. “He has impressed everyone with his attitude.”
Spence made four starts in 11 days in December. From his first for the club in a 5-0 win at Southampton to a red card in the dying seconds of a Boxing Day defeat to Forest, and a second yellow card for committing a foul to stop a counter-attack.
Spence made four starts in 11 days in December with the Spurs hampered by a series of injuries.
But he was sent off during the defeat to Nottingham Forest after stopping a counter-attack.
That earned him an early bath and ridicule from local fans, who often greeted him, telling him “you used to play for a big club.”
Until then, his most notable contributions had been the late equalizer in the Carabao Cup win at Coventry in September and Postecoglou's consolation when the Spurs boss was criticized by angry fans after a defeat at Bournemouth.
However, in the last month, Spence has transformed, showing that he has lost none of his ability to attack fluidly from the wing, reconnecting with his former Forest teammate Brennan Johnson on the right and deftly deputizing in the left.
Concerns about his defensive diligence remain, although well camouflaged in a team not designed to defend.
Udogie's absence (and those of Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero, Radu Dragusin, Pedro Porro and Ben Davies) means Spence will be involved in a key sequence of matches as Tottenham fight to escape the bottom half of the table. the Premier League and remain in cup competitions, as Postecoglou's position is under scrutiny.
Illness has left the Spurs boss even shorter in training this week, but he refused to criticize James Maddison's decision to attend the PDC World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace after being fit enough for the bench in a draw against Wolves on Sunday.
“He was supposed to play but he was sick, so I had to change the team that day,” Postecoglou said. “I don't have any problem with that and I don't think it hurt him. He wasn't 100 percent and it was a game where we needed someone who was 100 percent.
“He was still well enough to play, so it wasn't like he was bedridden.” If you were bedridden and didn't show up to the game and then went to the darts, there may be a problem there. But I didn't have any problem with it.'