Ben Davies played the second half of Tottenham’s pre-season friendly against West Ham as a centre-back and he was due to start in the same role against Leicester City.
Ange Postecoglou will have his fingers crossed that he has a couple more defensive options to choose from for Tottenham’s Premier League opener against Brentford. Very much a priority for the club in the transfer market, Spurs have been linked with a number of centre-backs, including Micky van de Ven and Edmond Tapsoba, but have so far yet to add to their backline.
Speaking last week on the club’s pre-season tour of Australia, the new Spurs head coach made it clear to football.london that he had quickly identified centre-back as an area the club needed to strengthen. He said: “Some of [the areas needing new players] I had identified early on. I don’t think it’s any secret about some of the areas we needed to strengthen. The goalkeeper was one and central defence is another.”
When asked if he wanted more centre-back options in through the door ahead of the Brentford match, the 57-year-old added: “Yeah, I think that’s definitely our intention, absolutely. We’ve been working on it for a while and we’ll definitely try to get it done as quickly as possible.”
Having previously operated with a three-man defence and wing-backs during Antonio Conte’s time in charge of the club, the appointment of Postecoglou will see Tottenham switch things up defensively and revert to a back four. Because of the change in system, it’s remains to be seen where exactly Ben Davies will line up for the Lilywhites.
Signed from Swansea City nine years ago and playing as a left-back for the club, the arrival of Conte in N17 in November 2021 saw Davies switch to the left-sided role in his back three. Having experience of playing there for Wales, the 30-year-old excelled in the position and became one of the first names on the team sheet under the Italian.
There is a difference between playing as a centre-back in a back three compared to the central berths in a back four, though, thus raising question marks over Davies’ position in Postecoglou’s Spurs team going forward. The Wales international has extremely little experience of playing as a centre-back in a back four for Tottenham, with Spurs’ 1-0 win over Burnley in December 2018 the first time he had played there.
