Close behind Eric Dier in the fan moaning stakes can be found Davidson Sanchez, who has regrettably developed a habit of losing concentration which is bad news for a footballer and potentially disastrous for a defender. Considering the Colombian’s fee and having been at Tottenham since 2017, Davidson has failed to make himself indispensable at Spurs.
Against Burnley, the 25-year-old made a phenomenal number of recoveries, 23 in total. You can see from the data sheets below just how impressive that was. This was his best game in this respect since playing against Everton in the FA Cup, on 10.02.2021. In his last 5 matches, Sanchez has averaged 13.5 recoveries.
19/15 successful duels gave Sanchez a 79% duel’s-won rate, which is way above his mean average of 60.8%.
On a less upbeat note, this wasn’t a Burnley side at its bruising best or most intelligent, whilst the visitors passed with a decent degree of accuracy, they only had 39% of the ball; 40% in the first half and 37% in the second.
I think the lesson from yesterday’s game is that Sanchez should not be paired with Dier, only Alderweireld, instead. In fact, Toby should be starting all the tougher games and perhaps rested only against, perhaps, ‘easier’ opposition e.g. Zagreb at home. And why isn’t the Welsh lad playing a bit more?
He needed a game like that. Will do him the world a good.
As Glenn would say “I’m scratching me ‘ead”
to find any negatives from yesterday.
I never felt much pleasure from the W Brom game but this felt a lot different.
The Dier / Sanchez axis is prone to errors. Hopefully Maureen doesn’t make the same one.