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Japhet Tanganga is not paying any attention to speculation over his future and has explained to football.london where Antonio Conte sees the versatile defender's position being on the pitch.
The 23-year-old academy product has been threatening to become a regular Premier League starter on a number of occasions but either injury or a dip in form has prevented him from taking the next step. Last season he produced some big performances, not least on the opening day against Manchester City, before a knee injury required surgery in March and ended his season prematurely.
Tanganga is now back and fully fit, albeit undergoing a slightly altered training schedule at points to help his knee strengthening, and is looking forward to the season ahead while in South Korea on Spurs' pre-season tour. With Conte's renowned gruelling training sessions in mind, the defender explained what it's like to work under the Italian.
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"It's intense, I think not only as a defender but as a team. He really wants us to work hard," he told football.london. "He has his methods and he really wants us to buy into it, so it's about concentration and focusing and implementing what he wants on the pitch. It's all good. He speaks to you to let you know if you're doing good or bad, what you need to improve on and what you're doing well. He's a good coach.
"I think the ownership has to come from the players. The gaffer gives us the solutions, but it's up to us on the pitch to decide what is the right one. It's about taking in the information and then doing the extra work, whether that's studying video analysis of some games back to see what you could have done better or you could have implemented that he wanted you to put in. Then it's taking it from there, taking ownership and putting it into practice on the pitch."
Tanganga's biggest problem is one of his strengths, with his versatility ensuring his various Spurs managers have employed him all over the back line, in the centre of the defence and sometimes on either flank as a full-back without any real rhythm or regularity. He explained where Conte has said he wants to play him more consistently.
"He sees me as one of the centre-backs, either right or left. That's the position he gives me the most information in and tells me what to do," he said. "Of course, you saw against Norwich that I can play in the right wing-back role if needed. I think he sees me in those roles though either side of the middle defender in the back three."
With the arrival of Conte and injuries in the defence, Tanganga started nine out of the new manager's first 16 games before his knee injury. The young defender has been linked with a move to various clubs this summer, most notably sides in Italy, but he is not reading anything in to that.
"It's just speculation and I don't read too much into speculation. My focus is I'm just happy to be back, being injury free and helping the team as much as I can and be ready when I'm called upon," he said.
"It's about being ready. There was a period when Cristian Romero was injured and the manager called upon me to play in that position. I'm just grateful to play as many games as possible and I'm just happy to play whenever the manager wants me to."
Tanganga admitted that last season was a frustrating one with his injury and, with Oliver Skipp, he would continue during his recovery to sit in on Conte's tactical meetings with the squad to soak up any information possible from the experienced boss.
"We were injured together and we would go into the meetings and he would be talking about the defenders and what they needed to implement," he said. "So we would just work out what we would do if I were playing so when we did get back fit, which we are too, we knew what we had to do. So it's just keeping our head with the team, being together and knowing that when we were back we were ready to implement what he wanted.
"Last season got off to a good start, playing a lot of games and then the injury came. It was a bit frustrating, it's been like that pretty much since I broke through. I've always said it's part of the game and it's something you have to deal with. I'm just thankful that I'm back now and back with the team."
Japhet Tanganga was speaking at a Tottenham Hotspur Global football development session with young adults from ChildFund Korea, one of the most influential charities in South Korea which aims to support children from low-income families to help develop their talents.
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