Tottenham insider John Wenham feels one of the club’s players has featured while not “fully fit whatsoever” as Spurs have been “desperate.”
Spurs have had a woeful last couple of seasons and though the summer window suggested that would stop here, there’s been no signs of such at the moment. After two 17th-placed finishes in a row, Tottenham are rock bottom of the Premier League following the first five games of the season.
That comes after a £300million spend in the summer transfer window.
The vast majority of that went on the midfield, where £185million was spent on Mateus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali. But Spurs have a host of other midfielders in their squad, including Lucas Bergvall, Conor Gallagher, Rodrigo Bentancur and James Maddison.
The latter has played a combined 106 minutes across competitions this season, after missing the vast majority of the last campaign with an ACL injury, only coming back for 34 minutes across the final three games of the season, when Tottenham survived on the final day.
That he hasn’t played more this season is due to injury, and there’s a sense that he wasn’t actually right enough to feature when he did last season.
James Maddison has played injured
Spurs insider Wenham told Tottenham News: “Yes [the break will be key].
“Basically what’s transpired is, I thought by him having those couple of cameos at the end of last season, that he’d have a full pre-season this time round and then he’d be ready to go for match week one.
“But that hasn’t happened at all, it has come out that effectively those cameos, we were just absolutely shot and desperate for anything to lift us towards the end of last season.
“He was coming on when he wasn’t fully fit whatsoever, giving those cameos to try and lift the fans or lift the squad, and he’s still finding his way back to fitness now.”
Indeed, Maddison himself admitted Spurs boss Roberto De Zerbi wanted him on the bench when he wasn’t fit as he felt it would be good for Tottenham’s squad.
He said: “One of the first things he [De Zerbi] said to me was, ‘I’m going to put you on the bench this weekend.’ I said ‘I’m not ready.’ I said, ‘I need another month, really.’
“And even then, I was pushing every day to try and help the team because we were in such a delicate situation. But he said, ‘No, no.’ He said I can come on the bench in my slippers if I want.
“He just wanted me around the group and he thought that would benefit the group. I took that as a massive compliment and acted as if I was part of the bench, part of the team, but we managed to steer clear of the danger.”
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