Tottenham Hotspur completed the summer signing of Yves Bissouma from Brighton and Hove Albion earlier on in the summer.
The 26-year-old defensive midfielder is yet to start a game for Spurs in the Champions League and he has started just once in the Premier League for the Londoners.
Denmark international midfielder Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has been a regular starter for Antonio Conte ahead of the Malian international and former Premier League Striker Gabrielle Agbonlahor believes that the 27-year-old Danish international deserves to start ahead of Bissouma.
He said to Football Insider: “It’s still early doors in the Premier League season. There are going to be injuries and unavailability.
“If someone’s playing well, as Hojbjerg is, you can’t just drop them for a new signing. Richarlison hasn’t come straight in, Perisic hasn’t come straight in. It’s a long season, so there’ll be a lot of rotation.
“Hojbjerg, for me, deserves to be starting because of the performances he’s put in this season.”
There is no doubt that Hojbjerg has been one of the best performers for Tottenham so far this season and he has established himself as an indispensable asset for Conte.
Starting both Bissouma and Hojbjerg in the midfield would leave Spurs with a very defensive setup and therefore the Malian might need to outperform his Danish teammate in order to secure a regular starting berth.
Bissouma has proven his quality in the Premier League with Brighton and it will be interesting to see if he can force his way into Conte’s starting lineup over the next few weeks.
Hojbjerg looks to have stepped up his game but is it at the level that has us all cooing? At the moment he is doing well for us, but if we are to take a step up we need better. He still isn’t a great footballer, in that he cannot be relied upon to get out a tight area. Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t awful, far from it. Just a consistent performer which is needed in all teams, a bit like a James Milner figure, but Milner was better. I wish PEH was a little nastier in his play, always patting opponents and helping them up should be binned off. He seems to come worse off in challenges too.
They play completely different roles
This.
Bissouma had Covid which I think put him back a few weeks. Once he’s up to speed, he’ll usurp Hojbjerg. Hojbjerg is a good player with great character but he’s still limited against top competitors, dropping too deep and not mobile enough….but it shows our emerging strength in depth that the drop off is marginal
PEH is much more dynamic this season so far, popping forward at good times for some attacking play. Spurs are not totally bereft there.
I believe the AM position when needed already has the players in place to operate it – Kane or Kulusevski. Both of them have the natural movement off the ball, holding ability, and threading ability to do it.
It looks to me like Conte is slowly working towards morphing into those options. He has already learned the hard way that dropping Son in is not very viable. Son gets lost off the ball unless he is in transition for a counter.
I think we are going to see some Kulusevski experiments as Richarlison works into more rotation time across the front. Kulu has a good skill set for that type of duty.
Zaniolo would have been a sub-only option with very little versatility on top of a poor injury record. Waste of money, very little juice in that squeeze. Imo at least.
Rodon looks solid today but I really like the young winger Sulemana.
Conte seems to play either 343 or 3412 that morphs into 352 at times. So he needs an experienced CAM that he can trust like Zaniolo that understands this role. Anyone else throws the whole formation off.
What Spurs really need in my view is not an attacking CM but a deep lying playmaker like Modric, Eriksen, Kroos, Jorginho that can initiate play from the back. We don’t really have this guy. Maybe Skipp can develop? Bissouma seems the more box to box type. PEH and Bent are more defense first ball movers.
He’s penny-wise and pound-foolish. Levy has never signed a big name in 23 years hence the 1 LC that we have been given in that time. World-class signings can transform a team’s fortune but Levy doesn’t care.
Firstly, Conte is not a patient man. He’s not somebody who is interested in long term projects and I doubt that he will stay at Spurs very long.
Secondly, we could have bought Grealish at a reasonable price but Levy reportedly offered Villa £10 million plus Onomah when he thought they were going bankrupt and we all know what then occurred. History is littered with Levy making low ball offers on good players that we needed at the time and missed out on because of his niggardly approach and before somebody comments that we can’t match City, Chelsea and the like, yes, we can, but you don’t have to pay over the top for players as Utd have done, you just have to be smart in the market. Levy has an undeserved reputation for being a shrewd negotiator in the transfer market when he is anything but that.
I do also believe Conte is playing the slowly , slowly game with players , board and fans .
We’re being drip fed with players , ‘for squad’ purposes , replaceable players , capable of high performance .
I feel if he had bought the Marquee and it wasn’t a complete success [ Grealish comes to mind] his ‘Aura’ might lose some of its sparkle , that the confidence we have in him might wane .
Our ‘next great player’ is around the corner , the Boss has yet to decide on his football ‘philosophy’ , maybe that one man might be his beacon , his personal game-changer. I know its gonna happen , I’d love it sooner rather than later , we aint all got time on our side – but I’m loving the evolution ! C O Y S !!!!!!!!
If it is so blindingly obvious to the fans, how is it that the recruitment and management team can’t see it? It seems to me that Catenaccio Conte doesn’t trust having an AM in the side and yet he took Eriksen to Inter. I suspect that in an ideal world, we need two AMs, after all you need two players for every position in a congested season. Having supposedly chased Zaniolo all window, it was reported recently that we had approached Inter for Barella late in the window. It was also mentioned by the papers that we had tried for Zaha at the end of the window. Forgive my cynicism, but this isn’t the first time it’s been leaked into the press that we have been linked with players but failed to get the deal over the line. It appears that there is a shortage of top class AMs out there. Milinkovic Savic would have been my pick but Maddison might have done a job for us, although he is a bit inconsistent. I will be interested to see how Paqueta performs, another player we were linked with which came to nothing but then that’s been a hallmark of Levy’s unsuccessful twenty three year tenure.
Conte plays one system 90% of the time, therefore the scope for the ‘permutations’ of which you speak are of little benefit. Teams need quality, not permutations and options, particularly with most managers operating in a mostly formulaic fashion, sticking with a regular core of about 13 outfield players. Conte a prime example of this.
Being unbeaten is great, and a barometer of why Conte has been so successful in league campaigns. However, too many draws and inability to Finish teams off, handing them too much possession can also lead to lost points and also failure to progress in knockout competition (see Conte’s abysmal European record). It’s a question of balance, a balance we currently lack in our midfield.
As yet unbeaten , a feel -good camaraderie purveys , and 3 or 4 players underperforming .
But we all know , as lifelong Spurs fans , that this is the best squad assembled at Spurs , genuinely dozens of player permutations , they’re almost clones .
We await the star , the Marquee , the Cherry on the cake .
A defeat is on its way for sure but I’d have loved to meet City now . This would probably confirm where we are , what we need . Conte IS inspiring ………….. C O Y S !!!!!!!
I think pretty much everybody is asking the same question.Midfield creativity is so obviously lacking in our squad and Conte must be aare of this.You can’t rely on our WBs to create anything ,they’re not fit for purpose [Peresic excepted].You would think this would be our no.1 priority in January.
Skipp’s been given shirt number 4, he’s 100% a defensive player. As good as Bissouma might be, I’m wondering why we didn’t bring in another type of midfielder with three defensive ones already in the first team squad…
Definitely. It’s our problem area.
He’s really playing to keep his place, possibly intensified with Bissouma’s arrival. Not sure that the midfield players we have on our books particularly compliment each other as partnerships. Skipp, PEH, Bentancur and Bissouma are all defensive type players. It’s little wonder that we struggle to find openings, other than on the counter attack..