Have Tottenham Hotspur replaced one club man Ledley King since retirement? With Tottenham’s poor defensive record of previous seasons, maybe it’s time that question is asked?
England Career
Ledley’s England career was good, but it had the potential to be amazing. Beginning with his U21 career, he made only 12 appearances, partly due to the fact that his talent wasn’t recognized until he was nearly too old to play for the U21’s. Otherwise, it is fair to say, he would have racked up many more appearances for the U21 national team.
For the England senior team, Ledley made 21 appearances. However, throughout his playing career, John Terry and Rio Ferdinand established themselves as England’s preferred centre-back options, with Jamie Carragher acting as their backup along with Sol Campbell. Due to his injuries it meant that Ledley could never really put a run of form together to challenge their positions and therefore, could never push himself towards the front of the queue. After starting his International career with the U21’s in 1999, he eventually finishing his senior International career in 2010 after the dismal World Cup in South Africa. It is fair to say Ledley never had the opportunity to show his true potential when playing for England. 
Spurs Career
Well, where do we start? Was Ledley the most reliable centre-half we have ever had at Spurs? With last-ditch blocks and sliding tackles, even showing a bit of pace sometimes, he was the complete central defender. He wore the Lilywhite shirt with pride and he was proud to play for the white side of North London. Playing a substantial amount of games for Tottenham, over 250 in fact, he hardly disappointed by any means. He also scored 10 goals during his time, he even scored one of the fastest in Premier League history, scoring 15 seconds into a game at Bradford.
Everyone praises Ledley’s loyalty, but the question is if he had stayed 100% fit in his career, and a huge club came in, would he have resisted? Personally I think he would have stayed because Tottenham was in his blood. When the retired from professional football he could have chased the money elsewhere, but he decided to stay with us and become an ambassador. It’s also a shame Ledley only ever won one trophy in his time at Spurs, the 2008 League Cup, as a player of his ability and loyalty deserved to win more.
Retirement
Nearing the end of his career, you could see he was struggling, not even training regularly and playing once every two weeks. With Ledley retiring in 2012, it was a huge upset, to see a legend stop playing the beautiful game. We still miss his leadership at the back, needing someone to command the back four, if we want to compete for the champions league spot. Upon retiring, Ledley decided to extend his future at Spurs by becoming club ambassador, and he still fulfills this role to this day.
Have we replaced him?
Since our Champions League days with Harry Redknapp we have never been that reliable in defence, as you can see us throwing away leads against Stoke at home, being 2-0 up at half-time for example, then conceding instantly at Leicester from Dele Alli’s opener in the 83rd minute. When we are in the lead you can never rely on our defence to hang on, even though its improved with clean sheets against Everton and Sunderland which shows we are making some improvements to shore up our backline. In the previous transfer window just gone, we competed with Southampton for the Belgian International Toby Alderweireld, for a fee around £12 million. Playing a vital role in Southampton’s solid defensive record last season, lets hope he can have the same influence with us. I think we haven’t replaced Ledley King yet, as we have flair at the back from the likes of Jan Vertonghen,
Other central defensive options like Fazio and Wimmer have also been added in recent times as Spurs look to put an end to their leaky defence. However, Fazio has been average but not done much wrong to lose his starting place, but Kevin Wimmer looks like very solid at centre-back. It will be interesting if Kevin Wimmer will eventually replace Vertonghen at left centre back in the future as both of these are left footed defenders, so it’s very unlikely Pochetino will partner them together.
