Tottenham Hotspur have done another deal in the January transfer window. This story was first reported yesterday and now it’s official — Spurs academy graduate and central defender Japhet Tanganga is heading to Championship side Millwall on loan until the end of the semester.
Japhet Tanganga has joined Championship side Millwall on loan for the remainder of the season.
Go well, Japh!
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) January 18, 2024
The loan is apparently “dry,” meaning there is no purchase option or obligation. That means Japhet will return to Spurs in June, and presumably Spurs will try to sell him permanently this summer. His current contract, a five-year deal signed in 2020, expires summer of 2025.
I don’t really have any idea how much Tanganga is expected to play at the Den this spring, but it’s probably a lot more than the zero minutes he played this fall at Augsburg, so sure — this seems like a fine loan to me. Millwall are languishing in the bottom half of the table, so one assumes that they need all the defensive help they can get. I hope he does well there because he’s not going to play at Tottenham and so the best thing for everyone would be if he can play his way into having a market and Spurs can sell him somewhere this summer.
I’ve said before that the club has done him a disservice through a (lack of) development at a key time in his early professional career and I hold to that. But that ship has now sailed, and the best thing Spurs can do for him now is let him go. Hopefully, that happens soon.