When Kieran Trippier is asked if Mauricio Pochettino and Sean Dyche have anything in common, he laughs. “There are similarities for sure. The defensive side we work a lot on here but, when I was at Burnley with Sean Dyche, he was the exact same. He wants a nice compact team that will run for 90 minutes, that’s a given. Burnley are a tough side to break down. It will be a good game on Sunday but we want the three points.”

Forget the data mining and the scouting dossiers, if Spurs need the inside number on their opponents on Sunday they need only call for Trippier. His four seasons at Turf Moor, first under Eddie Howe and then Dyche, were the making of the Bury‑born player. He was integral to the side that earned promotion to the Premier League under Dyche in 2014, his 14 assists from right-back a standout performance in any division. He knows their style of play and the attitude of the manager. He also knows their captain well: Ben Mee is a fellow graduate of the Manchester City youth team and the pair first played together aged nine.

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“We won the FA Youth Cup together, he was our captain and he signed for Burnley before me. I’ll always be in contact with Ben for sure,” Trippier says. “I still speak to a few of the boys. A few of them got married in the summer so we still have a lot of banter. It’s a great set of lads there. And a great manager, one I was delighted to play for.”

Trippier left Turf Moor for White Hart Lane for £3.5m in the summer of 2015 and has spent much of the past two years waiting. Kyle Walker’s form meant few opportunities on the right, with Trippier making six league appearances in his first season. The last campaign looked to be heading in the same direction until Pocchetino used him in five of the last six matches. His form was excellent and an England cap soon followed, playing all but 14 minutes of June’s friendly against France in Paris. Meanwhile Walker, left for the Etihad.

“There’s some days you start to think: ‘When is my chance going to come?’” says Trippier, now 26. “As a professional you always have that at the back of your mind. But I’ve never doubted myself once since I came here. When I signed in the first place I knew it was going to be difficult to get Walks out of the team. He did a fantastic job and everybody knows his qualities.

“It was a difficult two years but I always believed I could play there and I knew that when I got opportunities I had to take them. Sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes you have to be patient and your chances will come.”

That chance has now arrived, with Trippier handed Walker’s No2 shirt this summer. He is the man in possession of the right-back berth. Or perhaps right wing-back. The nature and importance of Trippier’s role in the team is an interesting question as the season gets under way. Much of Spurs’ width last season came through their full-backs and there is discussion as to what the absence of Walker and Danny Rose (still out of contention as the reverberations continue around his remarks about Spurs’ transfer policy) will mean for the team. After last Sunday’s home defeat by Chelsea Trippier was the subject of a lengthy piece of video analysis from Jermaine Jenas, pointing out moments when he had not made the runs his predecessor might have.

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Trippier accepts his role is a demanding one. “It is a difficult position,” he says. “The amount of running you have to do. You’re basically playing as a winger but when you’re out of possession you’re a right-back.” He says much of the individual training he does is as much about establishing the correct positions to take on the pitch, the timing of runs, as it is the delivery of crosses.

During that little cameo of matches last season, however, it was the consistent quality of Trippier’s crossing that stood out and he recorded five assists in six Premier League starts. “Ever since I was in the youth team at City I’ve always loved crossing the ball,” he says. “I don’t really try to pick anyone out, just hit those danger areas so your strikers can attack them. And we’ve got the best striker in the Premier League for doing that.”

With the Ivory Coast international Serge Aurier looking likely to join the 20-year-old Kyle Walker-Peters as competition for his place, Trippier knows the challenges he has faced in his career are not over yet. But he hardly seems fazed by the fact. “I work hard on the training field every day,” he says, “especially with the manager here. He demands a lot of the players and the standard never drops off. I’ve not heard anything [about Aurier] but I don’t need to worry about any of these things. As long as I’m playing I’ll run as far as I can for my team-mates and I love playing in this position.”