You could feasibly have picked just about anyone from Tottenham’s lineup for the Premier League team of the week after their impressive win over Manchester United, but Troy Deeney has singled out one player in particular for high praise.
While the likes of James Maddison, Brennan Johnson, Dejan Kulusevski, and Dominic Solanke all put in great performances at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon, adding goals and creativity to proceedings, it is in defence that Spurs really controlled the game.
A rare away clean sheet in the Premier League for the Lilywhites can be attributed to the composed and dominant displays of the Spurs back five.
From the full-backs closing off avenues down the wing to Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven not giving the likes of Marcus Rashford and Josha Zirkzee an inch of space, the Tottenham defence was in impervious form at the weekend.
In his weekly column for the BBC, Troy Deeney picked out van de Ven as the star of the game, praising his defensive work and also his ability to drive forward and deliver an incredible assist.
He wrote: “This is the second time he’s been in my team of the week already. Defensively he’s just a joke, I’m so impressed. His pace gets a lot of plaudits but the way he defends, the way he sees situations and covers his full-backs is excellent.
“And obviously another assist to add to a clean sheet in the win at Manchester United, so perfect for him.”
The full Team of the Week went as follows: Hermansen; Justin, Van de Ven, Anderson, Gvardiol; Cook, Tonali; Semenyo, Palmer, McNeil; Delap.
The £43m we paid for van de Ven is already looking like an absolute steal. Given his age and the way he’s playing, you’d be looking at double that to sign him now, at least.
While Cristian Romero is obviously crucial to us in terms of leadership and setting the tone, I would say not having van de Ven on the pitch worries me far more, as he offers so much defensively to protect the whole team.
The post One ‘perfect’ Spurs star makes Troy Deeney’s PL Team of the Week appeared first on Spurs Web.
