Norwich vs Tottenham: Kevin Wimmer shapes up for Spurs central casting

With Jan Vertonghen out for two months with a knee ligament injury, the best centre-back partnership in the country has been broken up

(2016 Getty Images)

Kevin Wimmer is ready to make his first Premier League start for Tottenham tomorrow, having slimmed down since arriving last summer. Through the manager Mauricio Pochettino’s gruelling training sessions and Spurs’ healthy eating regime, including cooking classes, he has got into shape, preparing him for the vital role he has in their season now.

With Jan Vertonghen out for two months with a knee ligament injury, the best centre-back partnership in the country has been broken up. Wimmer will partner Toby Alderweireld instead, having started six games in the cups so far. The Austrian looked assured in the 4-1 win at Colchester United on Saturday and spoke afterwards about how he has prepared himself for the step up to Premier League football.

“I have improved myself a lot in my first months in England,” said Wimmer. “My body shape is much better than before I came here. It was good, but now it is even better. My body fat has gone down a lot because of the hard training and now I take care of what I eat all the time.”

Some of this is down to the gruelling hard work of a Pochettino pre-season, which Wimmer enjoyed straight after joining from Cologne for £4million last summer.

The fact that Wimmer has been on the fringes of the team so far has given him even more time to train hard. “If you don’t play so much, you can train a lot and work a lot on your fitness,” he said. “So I have done a lot of extra work – and I can feel it.”

Just as important, though, has been Wimmer’s improved diet, under Spurs’ supervision. Like all new signings from abroad, he has been given cooking classes by the club. Just as helpfully, he can take healthy food home from the canteen at the training ground, ensuring he avoids bad habits.

“We get such healthy food in the canteen, which we didn’t have in Germany,” Wimmer said. “They let us take some home, which is good for me because I live by myself, so I don’t have to cook. It’s always nice.”

This all means that Wimmer, who has a naturally big frame, is certainly sharp and quick enough for top-flight football. He will play at Norwich City tomorrow night and presumably against Watford on Saturday. “I am ready to do it,” he said, “that is what I train for.”

Pochettino said last week that Wimmer is “like Vertonghen, but younger”, and the 23-year-old saw the comparison with the man he is due to replace. “I have tried to learn a lot from him in my first few months with the club,” Wimmer said. “Jan is one of the best in the Premier League. He is always very calm on the ball, I try to be as calm as him. Maybe in a few years I can be as strong as him.”

Nacer Chadli, 26, was the oldest of Spurs’ outfield starters on Saturday. This is still a very young group but they are competing seriously on three fronts and Pochettino wants them to prove that they are not too young to win.

“It is true that we have a lot of younger players, but the right youngsters, as they have a very strong mentality and they are hungry,” he said. “We need to have senior players who are hungry and young ones that push a lot and want to win the title. The most important thing is balance.”

Pochettino wants to prove wrong the doubters who say they are too young to win the title. “It is difficult to tell whether we are younger or older,” he said. “This is a topic in football, we need to demonstrate that it is not true.”