Tottenham Hotspur defender Matt Doherty has insisted that he is happy at the club and does not see his future lie elsewhere with the north Londoners reported to be closing in on a deal for Djed Spence.
The Athletic reported yesterday that Spurs have made a breakthrough in talks with Middlesbrough over a deal for the England Under-21 international and the player could undergo a medical by the weekend.
Doherty has set some personal objectives for the upcoming campaign as he looks to continue the impressive form he displayed before he suffered a season-ending injury at Aston Villa in April, he has now stepped up his recovery from the setback and has been put through some grueling training sessions on the club’s tour of South Korea.
Despite Doherty performing well before the injury, his starting spot could now be under threat with the likely arrival of Spence along with further competition from Emerson Royal, however, the Republic of Ireland international is accepting of the challenge.
Speaking to Football.London: “There’s a lot of competition and that’s never a bad thing, it brings everybody’s standards up, makes everybody train properly, train hard and that’s what you want,” he explained.
“You want to earn your position on merit. You don’t want it handed to you. We’re all competitors and that’s what we want. We want to fight against each other and get a place.”
On whether he expects to stay at the club this summer, he added: “Of course. I haven’t been told otherwise. My plan is to stay and fight for my place. We’ve got an exciting season ahead. Why would I want to go anywhere else?”
Our View
It is good to see that Doherty welcomes the competition, as maintaining such a mentality is the right way to make a mark under Conte. One could say that the 30-year-old defender was arguably our best wing-back before he ran into an unfortunate injury that halted his progress.
Adding Spence to our ranks would force Doherty to find that form once again, with Emerson Royal’s future hanging in the balance at this moment. The latter has found it difficult to replicate his form from his days at Real Betis, which has seen him get linked with a move to Atletico Madrid (Daily Mail).
That being said, Atletico are close to completing a move for Udinese full-back Nahuel Molina (Gianluca Di Marzio), which raises doubts about whether they would target Emerson this summer. In any case, Emerson looks to be on the way out, with Spence being close to joining us ahead of the upcoming season.
Emerson’s exit would give Doherty more opportunities at N17, but whether he would be a starter or not would depend on how he fares moving forward. In any case, the fans would be delighted to have Doherty and Spence in the right wing-back spot as it provides a balance between experience and fresh blood in that role.
