Tottenham Hotspur almost invariably have lousy luck with injuries and thanks to Ange Postecoglou's reckless abandon, Spurs already came into the 2025/26 season with critical injuries, namely multi-month absences for James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski, and evidently Dominic Solanke, too.
But even the newest additions to Tottenham haven't been able to avoid the injury bug that loves to bite Spurs players. Striker Randal Kolo Muani, who could have a huge role to play this year on loan from PSG, has yet to debut due to a "dead leg", while, quietly, center back Kota Takai has also yet to get any minutes of action due to injury.
Updates from above have been quiet on both fronts, but ahead of Tottenham's Saturday afternoon battle against Leeds United before the October international break, Tottenham manager Thomas Frank finally had a concretely positive injury update on the young Japanese defender.
Frank said, via the official Tottenham website, âKota is getting better and better. He's trained with the team for 10 days, so that's promising.â
A total unknown for Tottenham
Takai is just 21 years old and a total unknown, having played in Japan before joining the Premier League, and we have almost no sample size of players making this transition. But Spurs have nailed their prospect signings of late, with Lucas Bergvall standing out as a reason to give Spurs the benefit of the doubt here.
Even though Tottenham are still being linked to center back transfer targets for 2026, Takai is already a new face who could get action. When Radu Dragusin comes back, Spurs will be five deep at center back if you include Takai - and a further six if you throw in veteran Ben Davies.
Minutes are going to be hard for Takai to come by, regardless, and Spurs already had to loan the even more promising Luka Vuskovic to Hamburg because of the defensive logjam. But if Takai is coming around the corner health wise, it is an interesting though exercise to try to predict when or if Frank will give him a cup of coffee in the Premier League.
Obviously, Spurs didn't sign Takai with the intention of stuffing him in a drawer for years. The first step for Takai is getting healthy, and with 10 practice appearances under his belt, the preceding injury to his plantar fascia should be coming behind him. But obviously, with so much talent at center back, Spurs are in no rush to risk aggravation either.