Ledley King explains why he needs to talk to Tottenham’s Ashley Phillips

Club Ambassador, Ledley King has plenty of responsibilities at Tottenham Hotspur still, but the former Spurs skipper reveals he has one very specific task on his to-do list at the moment, and it involves Ashley Phillips.

King wants to see Phillips progress

Phillips was signed from Blackburn Rovers just over a year ago, and while he’s not made his senior debut for the Lilywhites yet, he has been on the bench a number of times.

The young defender goes into the new campaign on the back of a successful loan spell with Plymouth Argyle last season, and is currently poised to be a part of Ange Postecoglou‘s squad for the upcoming season.

Speaking to Football.London, club legend King explained that he wants to have a chat with Phillips: “I’ve not sat down and had the real opportunity [to speak to them], but I’d like to go into the training centre throughout the season just to speak to some of the youngsters, especially defenders… people like Ashley Phillips.”

“I do like him. I think he’s got a lot of qualities. I spoke to him the other day and said we definitely need to sit down and speak about your game, and how we can progress it. That’s something that I definitely enjoy, especially with centre-backs.”

What does King see in Phillips?

Continuing to discuss the Spurs youngster, King outlined the strong points in Phillips’ game: “There’s always going to be some traits, he’s tall, he’s quick, he’s good on the ball.

“There’s definitely some good traits, but when you’re young, it’s good when you just have a wiser head that can give you a few pointers, things just to make your game a little bit easier, because when you’re young, you play the game the hard way, you don’t know all the tricks.

“I think that the earlier you know a few tricks and you’re putting yourself in the right positions, it really makes your game a lot easier. So we’ll sit down, we will go through his game and see how we can improve it.”

Spurs Web Opinion

I really would like to see Phillips retained as part of the first-team squad this season rather than going out on loan.

He should really be pushing on to become our fourth-choice centre half now ahead of Ben Davies as we look to develop him for the future.