Unless I’m simply struggling to combat the nasty dose of PTSD I’ve got from watching Spurs this season, very soon a real football club is going to to do something relatively unspeakable to us.
Ordinarily when trying to assess a starting XI, one is looking for the manager’s ‘mission statement’ as such.
This side was simply the best Mauricio felt he could bundle together, given the resources available.
Again the player influence chart tells us a familiar tale.
Vertonghen’s lettering would have been the same size at least as Alderwiereld of course, had he not been forced to retire.
So let’s look at that midfield problem in some detail.
Yes, Eriksen was absent, but that is far too big a save-all statement; one that doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.
Mousa Dembele is finished.
Kaput.
86’d.
Unreliable is no good, but instead of some sensible succession planning, we got a few rumours about him maybe going to Italy, but Levy wanting approximately 50% than the old horse was worth. After this season, we’ll be lucky if a glue factory will take him away without charging.
The big Belgian made a grand total of 1 successful Tackle in the entire 90 minutes.
He also Recovered the ball. Once.
There was also a singular Interception.
In the ‘Clearances’ category Mousa went berserk and got rid of the ball a whole 2 times.
17 successful passes is also extremely poor. For context Gazzaniga made 13 and Harry Kane who ordinarily only tries to pass the ball into the net, managed 15.
In fact Mousa’s only saving grace this afternoon was that he didn’t cause as much annoyance as Eric Dier.
