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Kenny Tete interview: Why Luke Shaw and I spread the love at Old Trafford

Kenny Tete - Telegraph Sport/Eddie Mulholland
Kenny Tete - Telegraph Sport/Eddie Mulholland

One of the striking images of Fulham’s extraordinary FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester United just before the international break was that of Kenny Tete and Luke Shaw with their arms around each other as all hell broke loose.

Amid the arguments and recriminations as players from both sides crowded around referee, Chris Kavanagh, with Fulham suffering three red cards and a penalty concession as they eventually exited the competition, the two defenders were there in a friendly embrace.

“There was some pushing and pulling and I just thought: ‘what are you doing? What’s the point? Come here’,” explains Tete.

“Sometimes I understand there are emotions running high in the game and you have to have your team-mates back but there needs to be a lot of love. Not just in football but in life in general. It’s important for me. It’s my philosophy. Give love and receive love. And it works.”

Tete’s message of love is one he wants to spread. The Dutch international acknowledges that, at 27, he is a far “calmer” character than the one who grew up in Amsterdam. His father, Miguel, a former European champion heavyweight kickboxer, became a well-known doorman at the famous Bulldog Coffeeshop on Leidseplein before suffering a stroke in 2016, just after Kenny’s first season at Ajax where he had come through the academy.

Not that Tete’s more “chilled” demeanour has curbed his competitive instinct. He, too, kick-boxed when he was younger – and his uncle, Andre, won world titles in Muay Thai – before “falling in love” with football. “My father was a fighter, a professional kickboxer and I think I am also a fighter, a warrior on the pitch and there are some similarities between us. I just want to win and I just want to win my battles,” Tete says. “If you have a winger or a player in your position you want to make sure you take care of him.”

Playing at right-back means Tete is up against some of the quickest and trickiest wide players in world football. Like all good defenders he studies the “clips” of his opponents which are provided by Fulham’s analysts. But he also has his own unique approach.

“I always do 10 tackles after training,” Tete says before pausing to see my reaction. “No, only joking!” he adds, laughing, as he sees I am struggling to work out how – exactly – that could be organised. After all, it is a bit different from practising some free-kicks.

“I have been good at tackling and liked it since I was young,” he explains. “And when I was young the coaches would say: ‘you lie on the ground too much! Stay on your feet’. But now I am top on the list and that makes me happy. It’s something I am really proud of.”

Tete is, indeed, top of the Premier League charts for successful tackles and is in the top three across Europe’s big five leagues (with a win rate of 88.1 per cent – Bayern Munich’s Benjamin Pavard is top with 91.1 per cent). “I see those statistics on social media,” Tete says.

But there is far more to his game than just that, of course, with Tete proud to be a provider as well as a destroyer, with he and left-back Antonee Robinson taking it in turns to attack down the flanks. It has worked. Tete has four assists and only Andrew Robertson and Kieran Trippier have provided more goals.

Leandro Trossard of Arsenal and Kenny Tete of Fulham during the Premier League - Getty Images/Jacques Feeney
Leandro Trossard of Arsenal and Kenny Tete of Fulham during the Premier League - Getty Images/Jacques Feeney

Still, he relishes the one-on-one challenges and laughs when he is told about a story from former Manchester United winger Jordi Cruyff who said he was shocked - and grew to like - how when he came to England fans almost cheered a tackle as much as a goal.

“It’s true,” Tete says. “It’s much more in England which, for me, has the best football culture with the Premier League, the players, the fans. People enjoy it here if you make a tackle and fight for the ball. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here – because it’s the most competitive.”

When Tete was named man-of-the-match following Fulham’s recent draw away to Chelsea, pundit Gary Neville was fulsome in his praise and declared: “Right-backs have been ridiculed for years but we’re in fashion now!”

Tete smiles. “Oh, it’s a big compliment,” he says. “He was a famous right-back so I will take that and put it in my pocket! No, it’s always nice to hear those good things especially from someone like him who played in the same position.”

Right-backs are, indeed, fashionable again. England are blessed to have Trippier, Kyle Walker, Reece James and Trent Alexander-Arnold but, undoubtedly, Tete is in the argument when it comes to deciding who has been the most impressive in that position in the Premier League this season.

'I could smell success coming'

Naturally he is relishing being back in the top-flight, having joined Fulham from Lyon in Sept 2020 for just £3million – a bargain – but whose first season was hampered by injury as they suffered relegation back to the Championship.

Winning that division so emphatically under Marco Silva has bred confidence. “He’s an amazing coach,” Tete says of the 45-year-old Portuguese with Fulham, in ninth place ahead of facing Bournemouth – who came up with them but are in a relegation battle – on Saturday. It has been an outstanding, refreshing campaign from the Cottagers.

“You can see from every club that he has been at, the style is the same: attacking football,” Tete adds of Silva. “You can see what he has done with this club and what we have achieved already in less than two years. He has made us very tough to beat and we have not changed our approach. I am so pleased to work with him – especially as he was also a right-back!”

Still there were, understandably, nerves and uncertainty at the start of the campaign especially as Fulham’s first opponents when the fixture list came out were Liverpool. The lunchtime fixture at Craven Cottage kicked off the Premier League campaign and the world was watching.

But Tete could “smell” that Fulham would succeed after gaining a credible 2-2 draw that could have been a win as Liverpool were, twice, forced to fight back.

Fulham's Kenny Tete reacts with Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta - Reuters/David Klein
Fulham's Kenny Tete reacts with Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta - Reuters/David Klein

“With that game you could smell – with the way we played, how compact we were, how good we were on the counter, how we created chances,” Tete says. “If you play like that against Liverpool you can fight against every team. That’s what I mean by smelling it.”

Fulham have done that. A season that many predicted would be a struggle has the scent of success and sees them already on 39 points – 11 points more than they gained in the whole campaign when they were last in the Premier League and with 11 games still to go.

“We are aiming as high as possible,” Tete says. “I even think we should have won more games. We believe so much as a team and have so much hunger… if you look at the table and the teams below us, especially some of the teams near the bottom – big teams, good teams – then what we have achieved so far is something we have to be proud of.”

It is why, going back to that FA Cup quarter-final which ultimately ended in a 3-1 defeat after Fulham were reduced to nine men – with Willian and Aleksandar Mitrovic sent off as well as Silva – losing at Old Trafford was so disappointing.

“I think we should be in the semi-final,” Tete says. “I don’t think they even had a shot at our goal (before the penalty incident with Willian red-carded for handball). We were doing so well and then it all changed in one minute.”

Still Tete accepts it is another sign of how far Fulham have come. “If you would have told us a year ago that we would have gone to Old Trafford, controlled the game, 1-0 up, no-one would have expected that,” he explains. “Now it says something about us, about the manager and we have to build more. It’s been such a good season for us.”