Gary Lineker brings up maiden England call up possibility for Spurs defender | OneFootball

One of the biggest success stories in a disappointing season for Tottenham Hotspur so far has been the emergence of Djed Spence. A cast off for the first two years of his Spurs career, and even this season, to begin with - he was not in the team very often, and bizarrely left out of the Europa League squad.

However, through chance due to the amount of injuries Spurs have had, he has had a long run in the team since the middle of December, and has been superb in the vast majority of those games. Despite playing out of position at left-back, he has been consistently very good, both defensively and on the ball.

Owing to these performances, there has been talk within the fanbase that he deserves his first ever call up to the senior national team. One pundit who agrees with this, is former Spurs striker Gary Lineker.

Gary Lineker tips Spurs defender for a first ever England call up

Speaking on The Rest is Football podcast, the 64-year old was asked if he was impressed with Spence, and responded with: "Absolutely. I was really impressed with Djed Spence again. I think he was, quite rightly, given man of the match by Gary Neville. He was up and down. He was good defensively. He was good on the ball.

It’s funny, isn’t it, that about a year ago, well, not even that really, actually during the Euros itself, we were going, you know, the left-back problem for England - and then suddenly you get three emerge at once, you know, with [Myles] Lewis-Skelly, obviously Lewis Hall and Djed Spence, you know, three young players that suddenly look really strong in that position.

And I would think one of them will be playing in Thomas Tuchel’s first game, which is only just, what, a month away now. So they’ll be fighting for that position.”

Hard to disagree with these comments. If he does receive a call up, it will be interesting to see if it as a left-back or right-back. Outside of Trent Alexander-Arnold, there is not much at right-back. Kyle Walker is well past his best, Reece James is very injury prone, Kieran Trippier has retired, etc. Although Spence has been playing as a left-back, he could be called up with a view to playing on the right.

There is extra incentive for the 24-year old to get a call up this summer too, with it being confirmed that England are set to play against Senegal in a friendly at the City ground - the home of Nottingham Forest - in June. There is no doubting that, so far, Spence has played the best football of his career at Forest, and playing at the City ground as a home player would be amazing for him.