Former Spurs manager Tim Sherwood has been surprisingly critical of Tottenham new signing Micky van de Ven.
Micky van de Ven started the game alongside Cristian Romero, but Romero was taken off after just 15 minutes due to a head injury, which meant that VDV had a new centre-back partner in Davinson Sanchez for the rest of the game.
And the Dutch defender put in a calm and composed performance in his debut displaying the qualities that justified his signing.
Despite van de Ven’s solid debut, Sherwood commented on his perceived shortcomings, describing him as “wooden on the ball” and highlighting certain aspects of his playing style.
Tim Sherwood told Premier League Productions (via HITC):
“It’s not about individuals at centre-half, it’s about partnerships. I hope van de Ven is the answer.
“To me, he looks a bit wooden. He is very quick. 6ft5. I am just saying what I see. I don’t know a lot about him and, hopefully, he is a lot better than I think.
“He is very wooden on the ball. Slow on the turn. Very quick in a straight line. And, hopefully, Romero and him could be the partnership that they need.”
In contrast, Ange Postecoglou expressed his satisfaction with van de Ven’s debut, acknowledging the challenge of integrating new players into the squad. Postecoglou praised van de Ven’s performance and potential as a good footballer.
He said:
“We had Micky, Destiny and Vic making their debuts together. In defence, obviously they’re going to need to get used to each other. We took a bit of a gamble throwing them all in and I thought all of them handled themselves really well.
Micky has only had three sessions with us. I could have waited to put him in there but he’s a good footballer.”
This is not the first time Sherwood has been critical of a new signing’s performance.
Back in January when Spurs signed Pedro Porro, Sherwood was harshly critical of the Spaniard after his debut claiming that the player was all over the place.
He was soon proven wrong by Pedro as he became one of Spurs’ best players towards the end of the season.
And Micky van de Ven has all the attributes to prove Sherwood wrong as well.
