Speaking recently on the Last Word On Spurs podcast, John Wenham raved about Tottenham Hotspur left-back Dennis Cirkin.
A product of the Spurs academy, Cirkin is yet to make his first-team debut for the club, despite having featured on the bench in the club’s Europa League campaign this season.
However, the 18-year-old has featured a number of times for the club’s youth sides, scoring four goals and providing two assists over his 25 appearances for the U18 side, and providing one assist over his 12 appearances for the Spurs U23 team.
The junior England international was one topic of conversation on a recent episode of the Last Word On Spurs podcast, in which Wenham heaped praise on Cirkin, drawing a comparison between the young Spurs defender and Chelsea’s Ben Chilwell.
He said: “He’s a great player. He’s been England’s first-choice left-back throughout all the different age groups, starting from U15 onwards. You’ve seen how successful England are at youth level – that shows you how highly he’s respected.
“I always say to people, when they ask me about Dennis Cirkin, you could drop him into a Premier League game and he wouldn’t look out of place. The most similar player in the Premier League I’d compare him to is Ben Chilwell, in terms of the style of player he is.
“He’s confident on the ball; he just needs a chance. I’ve got absolute faith that once he’s given a chance, he will not look out of place and [we’ll] suddenly think, ‘Oh, we’ve got another left-back here.’
“It could, long-term, lead to Tottenham maybe cashing in on Ben Davies, because we’ve got this young, up and coming, homegrown left-back, who can battle with [Sergio] Reguilon for a start.”
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TIF Thoughts on John Wenham’s comments regarding Dennis Cirkin…
From Wenham’s comments, it is clear that the podcaster has very high hopes for the future of Cirkin at Tottenham, and that the 18-year-old could eventually replace Ben Davies in the Spurs first team.
And considering Mourinho has previously singled the left-back out for praise, claiming that Cirkin is “a kid with a lot of quality,” as well as stating that he is looking forward to “help his development” at Tottenham, it would indeed seem that the future is bright for the young defender.
It appears to be only a matter of time before Cirkin gets his chance in the senior side.