Kota Takai has finally been able to take part in Tottenham training after securing his work permit and there was plenty to notice in his early sessions.
football.londonrevealed on Tuesday that the 20-year-old Japan international had been given his work permit that morning a week after his £5million move from Kawasaki Frontale. That meant Takai could begin his pre-season work which included testing and bloodwork in the gym with the sport science department before taking to the training pitches of Hotspur Way with his new Tottenham team-mates.
The Yokohama-born defender signed a contract with Spurs that will run until 2030. He was named the J.League’s Best Young Player last year and made a total of 81 senior appearances in all competitions, scoring four times, and played a key part in helping the team reach the 2025 AFC Champions League final.
Spurs released some footage of the centre-back's first couple of days training at the Enfield complex this week and here are five things we spotted from his early steps into life under new head coach Thomas Frank.
Translating time
football.londoninterviewed a J.League expert last month about the centre-back in the shape of in freelance football editor and former Goal.com Japan chief editor and DAZN news Japan chief editor Tasuku Okawa and he told us that Takai's English was a work in progress.
"When it comes to language, his English is limited, so how quickly he can grasp tactical instructions is uncertain," he said. "Personality-wise, he’s calm and perhaps a bit unconventional. He might need time to adjust to a very different environment. He’s not very talkative and doesn’t speak to the media much. He has a laid-back demeanour, which could make integrating into a new team a bit of a challenge — though with a young Spurs squad including players like Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall, there may be a smoother path for connection."
As Takai took on his early gym work this week, the footage appears to show a translator in the background because off camera one could also be heard speaking Japanese to him at times.
However, it did appear that the young defender could understand various things said to him and used a little English at the start and end of the video which suggests he's been working on his language skills.
New face helps
Takai is not the only newcomer to the building during a summer of change at the north London club and he was getting plenty of help in the gym work from another new face at Spurs.
Tom Perryman has joined the north London club as a strength and conditioning coach from Brentford, following Frank and various members of staff in making the trip across the capital to Hotspur Way.
The 45-year-old could be seen working with Takai in the gym and appeared to be using his phone to show him what he wanted to do a couple of times, presumably using something like Google translate to help make it clear.
Hanging on to Destiny
The Japan international was later shown heading out to training with his new Tottenham team-mates and there were plenty of happy faces among the bunch as they emerged into the sunshine.
As they were jogging out across the pitches, Micky van de Ven grabbed the back of Destiny Udogie's training shirt and was either trying to hold him back for a while or was holding him like a toddler or horse on reins.
Takai will be one of the taller players in the squad and the 6ft 3ins centre-back certainly looked that way while jogging alongside Manor Solomon, who is only just over 5ft 5ins.
Bit of pace
Next up it was that dreaded 1km run that has had the players looking shattered this pre-season so far and if they thought it was just the first session that would involve it under Frank then they were wrong as it is a test that will repeated a couple of times during pre-season to check on their progress.
"I don't know if I'm a modern coach or not sometimes but we started running today!" said Frank last week. "I think old school is still good school, I think that's still important to have a bit of that. Now we had a running test today and we'll have that again when the internationals are back and probably also a little bit later down the season.
"But, in general, that was just a short test, basically a 1km test. So if they did it well enough they're below three minutes 15 seconds, So that sounds easier, with turns by the way. So that's one thing that is done and then it's it's football. Everything with the ball, everything is on that, and then we will top up with some runs because I believe there's a big bit in that mental part of pushing."
Takai was running in a group that involved the likes of Brennan Johnson, Richarlison, Lucas Bergvall, Pape Matar Sarr, Rodrigo Bentancur and Ben Davies. The Japanese defender appeared to get back before many of them which proved what Okawa had told football.london in that interview about his "good pace".
Match sharp but knackered
It shows the difficulty of these tests in the heat that even a match-sharp player - Takai is halfway through the J.League season - can still be shattered after
The young centre-back collapsed to the floor as he crossed the line at the end of the run, coated in sweat, and lay on his back, arms outstretched and breathing heavily.
When he eventually sat up, he was asked "how was that, good?" by the cameraman, before replying "not good" with a shake of the head and smile.
It's going to be tough work in the Premier League for Takai and it all starts now.