In the first half of last season, many Tottenham supporters still hoped Djed Spence was the key to transforming Antonio Conte’s stuttering side, but now Spurs have agreed to send the 23-year-old to a mid-table Serie A club in the latest bid to resurrect his flagging career.
Spurs have sent Spence to Genoa on loan as part of a £26million package for defender Radu Dragusin. Genoa would have an option to make his move permanent for around £8.5m in the summer.
The right-back has been reluctant to go, but Spurs have made it clear that Spence, who has been training with the Under-21s since being sent back from a season-loan loan at Leeds last week, is not part of Ange Postecoglou’s plans, needs game time and may not get a better offer than Genoa this month.
One source even suggested that Spence’s career, at this level at least, is already in jeopardy.
It has been quite a fall for Spence, who was outstanding on loan at Steve Cooper’s Nottingham Forest as they beat Arsenal and Leicester in the FA Cup and won promotion in 2021-22. His eye-catching displays earned him a move to Spurs from parent club Middlesbrough at the end of the campaign in a deal worth up to £20m.
He has been a disastrous signing and, with Spurs hoping to ship him out on a second loan spell overseas, it is unclear what the long-term future holds. Spence has played a little more than 30 minutes in total for Spurs, and started just 14 matches in 18 months — nine in the back half of last season at French club Rennes and five at Elland Road.
A badly-timed knee injury in November was a factor in Spence’s lack of game time at Leeds, but ultimately he failed to impress manager Daniel Farke, who questioned his “professionalism” after the club terminated the loan deal six months early.
Falling out with managers has been a theme of Spence’s short career, and Neil Warnock, his boss at Boro, hinted at issues with his professionalism. Warnock remarked: “I basically said to him that you can go to the top or you can go non-League.”
As well as issues with his attitude and punctuality, there are off-field concerns and questions about his focus and behaviour.
Spence arguably got a raw deal on joining Spurs, however. The transfer was spearheaded by Fabio Paratici, Spurs’s then-managing director of football, but the England Under-21 international quickly became a pawn in Conte’s power struggle with the club.
The day he signed, Conte described Spence as a “club signing”, effectively disowning him from the off.
It was disingenuous, given the Italian helped persuade Spence to join Spurs over Forest and Brentford, but the player was restricted to just a handful of brief cameos in the first half of last season for a side crying out for thrust at right wing-back. He was then farmed out to Rennes in January.
It was felt that the French club, as one of the most watched by scouts in Europe, would be a good place for Spence to catch the eye of bigger suitors, but he hardly made waves in France, returning to Spurs in the summer to find a new head coach in Postecoglou.
"There is a parallel between Djed Spence and Marcus Edwards, another promising youngster who found it difficult at Spurs"
It might have been a fresh start under a coach far more willing to trust youth than Conte, but Postecoglou believes good professionals are as important as good players and Spence did not meet his standards, struggling to be punctual and show the desired attitude in pre-season.
There is a parallel between him and Marcus Edwards, another promising young player who found it difficult at Spurs. Edwards also clashed with Farke during a loan spell, in his case at Norwich, and was accused of tardiness and unprofessionalism by managers — but he is now shining in Portugal for Sporting CP.
Spence is also not the first “club signing” from the Championship to struggle at Spurs, with Jack Clarke only now delivering on his potential at Sunderland after being thrust upon Mauricio Pochettino and Joe Rodon quietly impressing on loan at Leeds.
Maybe away from any negative influences at home and the unforgiving glare of English football, Spence can rediscover the form that briefly made him one of the most exciting players in the country. No one questions his potential, but it is now down to him to unlock it.
