Kota Takai: Spurs Career In Danger?

After making the biggest step of his young career so far by joining Tottenham Hotspur, Kota Takai likely would've never expected his first season in Europe to be so unfortunate.

False Starting Spurs

The season from hell for Spurs and Takai started with Takai's peculiar plantar fasciitis problem, which had enough danger to potentially ruin his career from the get go. Then came Tottenham's spectacular fall down the Premier League, which one must assume played little effect to Takai personally, but perhaps damaged any slight chance he had in the first place of playing competitive football for Spurs this season, with risk-taking being the last of Thomas Frank's ideas in a crisis.

Takai joined Tottenham from Kawasaki Frontale in July 2025 for £5 million

Tottenham found themselves losing players by the week, and any competent board would've seen the situation as a time to hold on to senior players, despite their lack of experience. Surely at some point, any senior player is better than no senior player?

Whilst Takai is young and inexperienced in Europe, he has a wealth of high-level playing experience, representing Japan on the international stage and facing the likes of Ronaldo's Al Nassr in the Asian Champions League. He had, at the time, plenty of credentials to at least be given a chance.

Takai's German Expedition

Despite this, Takai was sent on loan to a struggling Borussia Monchengladbach in the German Bundesliga; a league which seems to favour Japanese players in particular, with Takai joining compatriot Shuto Machino at the club who fostered talents like Marco Reus and Granit Xhaka.

Kota Takai's 5 appearances for Monchengladbach

Fast forward to the present day, and it seems Takai has personally joined in on the struggle, producing admittedly unfortunate but ultimately weak and naive performances, similar to that of a raw talent being thrown into a sticky situation. Takai is raw; there is no question about that. But Spurs fans shouldn't lose all hope yet on the young centre back. He is the J League's biggest export for a reason; he is not a bum.

How does Takai's Career turn around?

Whilst, at the moment, the bleakness of the situation for all involved is strong, all is not lost for Kota Takai. The final stretch of the season is proving to be crucial; should Takai find himself producing one or two good performances, or even show flashes of quality of the likes of his future team-mate and fellow Bundesliga loanee Luka Vuskovic, his situation could spin dramatically.

Luka Vuskovic lighting up the Bundesliga for Hamburg

Tottenham's league performance makes the chances of Cristian Romero or Mickey Van de Ven staying even more unlikely, especially if (and that's a big if) Spurs do the unthinkable and get relegated. However, for players like Kota Takai, Luka Vuskovic and Jun'ai Byfield, this then presents a situation where their pathways to first-team football at a massive club like Spurs become immensely more clear.

Tottenham's Youth Revolution

Vuskovic and Byfield likely have first dibs ahead of Takai currently, with Byfield gaining Premier League and Champions League minutes amid Frank's and Spurs' injury disaster. Players like Kevin Danso and Radu Dragusin become the de facto CB pairing should Romero and Van de Ven leave; however, a world where Danso, but especially Radu Dragusin, a player with a trigger-happy agent, leaves is highly plausible.

Weirdly, a season in the Championship would be somewhat of a blessing in disguise, particularly for the development of Tottenham's young core, featuring a chance of regular starts for potential world beaters like Archie Gray, Wilson Odobert, Lucas Bergvall, Matyhs Tel and even the 22, 23 and 24-year-olds, should players such as Pape Matar Sarr stick around.

Taking all this into account, Kota Takai may find his fortunes change dramatically for the next season and have a chance to properly show the quality he has gained reputation for. As we've seen before at Spurs with players such as Djed Spence, who seemed to be destined to be sold or lost to the nether realm of the Spurs training ground and never seeing a team sheet, turnarounds of careers are not impossible.