Tottenham defender DeAndre Yedlin takes motivation from swift Harry Kane rise

Tottenham Hotspur defender DeAndre Yedlin claims he is encouraged by the rapid progress made by Harry Kane this season as he seeks to make his own significant impact following a move from Major League Soccer.

Striker Kane has enjoyed a fairytale rise to prominence under manager Mauricio Pochettino. Having been sent out on loan on four different occasions since 2011, he began featuring regularly in the Premier League in November 2014 and has quickly repaid the faith shown in his abilities with a quite outstanding run of 19 goals in just 28 games.

That figure puts the 21-year-old level with Diego Costa and Sergio Aguero at the top of the goalscoring charts and also helped him gain a place in Roy Hodgson's England squad for the Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania and the friendly encounter with Italy in Turin.

Evidently blessed with the Midas touch, Kane scored just one minute into his international debut in March and Yedlin, who already has 14 senior caps for the United States, appears determined to use his teammate's meteoric rise as motivation for his own career.

"It's obviously a place where younger players are developing greatly and you look at Harry Kane he's the main one and he has just shot through the roof and that's very encouraging," he was quoted as saying by the London Evening Standard.

Youth gets a chance at Spurs

Kane is certainly not the only young talent being given ample opportunity to shine at White Hart Lane this season, with Ben Davies, Eric Dier, Ryan Mason and Nabil Bentaleb all having featured regularly under Pochettino.

Yedlin has only made one brief substitute appearance since arriving at Tottenham from Seattle Sounders in January, yet he is obviously heartened by his manager's willingness to give such inexperienced players an extended run in the first team.

"I think it's very motivating when you have guys like Nabil who has started every game at 20 years old and it's encouraging to know that Pochettino has that kind of trust in younger players."

Tottenham have stuttered somewhat in April and followed up a horribly dour goalless draw at Burnley with a hugely disappointing defeat to Tim Sherwood's struggling Aston Villa on 11 April.

Having toiled for four consecutive seasons in the Europa League, often at great cost to their domestic form, supporters will surely not relish another year in the competition but that is probably now the limit of their ambitions for the current campaign with the club lying seventh and seven points adrift of the top four.

Tottenham travel to Newcastle United on 19 April, a game that a section of home fans could boycott in order to demonstrate their opposition to Mike Ashley's ownership.