This morning I wrote a debrief on Tottenham’s Transfer Deadline Day dealings, but now that ‘Silly Season’ has passed, it’s time to talk about football.
We know that Tottenham’s £30million pound signing of Moussa Sissoko makes a significant statement of intent, but the more important impact, will be the one he makes between the white lines. So, what will Moussa Sissoko bring to Tottenham, and where will he fit in?
So who do we have here?
Most fans know Moussa Sissoko best from his time at Newcastle United, where he would regularly sandwich dazzling displays between two or three lacklustre performances. Often the best athlete on the pitch, Moussa often cut a frustrating figure as he produced performances well below of the level he is capable of. After witnessing a failure from the entire playing staff last season, the Newcastle fans would have been excited to see more of the real Moussa Sissoko in the coming year after he impressed for France in Euro 2016. Yet before he was Newcastle’s powerhouse, Moussa Sissoko was the pride of Toulouse FC in France.
Sissoko broke into the first team in 2007, aged just 18 years old at the time. A regular for French youth sides throughout his early years, Sissoko became a stalwart of the Toulouse side in the holding midfield position. His powerful stature along with his rangy, combative, athletic style of play led to inevitable comparisons to ex-France midfielder Patrick Vieira as Sissoko began to garner interest from around Europe. The emergence of Etienne Capoue (remember him?) in the defensive midfield role allowed Sissoko to assume his preferred box-to-box position in the side and his development continued to flourish. In 2010, who else but Tottenham Hotspur enquired about his services, but were rebuffed after a £12million bid was rejected. With Juventus, Bayern Munich and Man City also circling, Toulouse president Olivier Sadran announced that Sissoko would only leave for a fee in excess of €30million.
Sissoko remained in Toulouse until 2013, where Newcastle United picked him up after his contract expired in France. Hatem Ben Arfa, Davide Santon, Loic Remy, Remy Cabella, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa and Georginio Wijnaldum are just a handful of players who joined Newcastle United with stellar reputations, but failed to live up to expectations for a number of reasons while on Tyneside. Moussa Sissoko seems to have fallen into the same trap as he failed to propel his career much further during his time in the Sports Direct Arena. However, Sissoko did impress enough to force his way into a competitive French national team, and the powerful midfielder excelled in this year’s European Championship. Now just 27 years old, with some of his best years ahead, there is great hope that the positive club situation that now exists at Tottenham can allow Sissoko to fulfil his great potential.
Where will Sissoko fit in?
If Tottenham had been offered anywhere close to £20million for Moussa Dembele in the summer of 2014, most fans would have jumped with delight as they waved him out the door. Fast forward two years and the side looks hollow without his presence, and no Tottenham fan in their right mind would even entertain a bid of £30million for the Belgian midfield general. There’s a hope around now, that Pochettino can work the same sort of magic to reignite the career of Moussa Sissoko, a player with a similar skillset to Dembele’s. This of course means that having Sissoko as a like-for-like replacement for Dembele in the midfield is a very realistic possibility, but I believe that Pochettino will be more inclined to try and find a formula that incorporates both of the dynamic midfielders.
Offering sound technical ability, boundless energy and lethal pace, Sissoko presents a number of possibilities to Mauricio Pochettino. Let’s start by looking at the most likely scenario…
New Dimension
We know that Pochettino favours the 4-2-3-1 formation which has served him well until now, but aside from our two rapid full-backs, the Tottenham attack is often found lacking in pace when set up like this. Just last weekend Pochettino bemoaned this, and pointed to Liverpool’s Sadio Mané as the type of weapon he would like to be able to turn to.
Enter: Sissoko
With the likes of Matuidi or Kante sitting back to mind the house, Sissoko was often given free roam to roam up and down the wings for France this summer, and did so to devastating effect at times. While he failed to get in on the scoring act, Sissoko’s powerful running applied massive pressure to opposition defences, which unlocked doors for the likes of Griezmann and Payet. Sissoko’s powerful, probing runs force teams into defending far further back in their own half than they’d like, creating much more space for playmakers to dictate.
With Tottenham so reliant on Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela to pick holes in defences, having another weapon, like Sissoko’s athleticism from a wide position, creates a new dimension to the Tottenham attack.
The Direct Approach
When you have good players, football is a simple game, and I think Pochettino may feel that simplicity is the key in the coming weeks.
It’s highly probably that Vincent Janssen will be used as a backup for Harry Kane first and foremost, but after a promising showing with two up front last week, it’s likely that Pochettino may want to further examine this idea.
Teams are often wary of playing a 4-4-2 in fear of being overrun at midfield. Yet, as Leicester City showed last season, 4-4-2 can be very effective if you have the right centre-mid partnership. A Leicester coach famously suggested recently that they had actually been playing three in midfield for all of last season: ‘Drinkwater in the middle and Kante either side.’
As of now, Tottenham boast one of the most powerful midfields in England. In Eric Dier and Victor Wanyama, Spurs have two of the most physically dominant holding midfielders in the league, while Moussa Dembele and Dele Alli (and potentially Sissoko) bring an unmatched motor to the box-to-box midfield position.
With a pairing of Dier and Dembele, like we saw so often last season, Spurs would be free to allow Sissoko to wreak havoc on the right wing, while either of Lamela or Eriksen orchestrated from the other side. This option would also give Tottenham the most fire-power, with both strikers on the pitch at once, causing nightmare for defences.
So, having illustrated the possible options that Sissoko allows us to explore, it’s also important that we don’t forget Tottenham’s other deadline day signing – George Kevin N’Koudou.
N’Koudou comes in as a bright young prospect, similar to Clinton N’Jie the year before, but where N’Jie was somewhat of a wide forward, N’Koudou is very much an out-and-out winger. Having been a key supplier for Belgian striker Michy Batshuayi at Marseille last season, Spurs could very well use N’Koudou’s pace and delivery ability in either of the positions outlined for Sissoko in the two line-up’s above.
So, as another transfer window bites the dust, I can’t wait to see this Tottenham side in action!
thinkspurs 