For an awful lot of Tottenham Hotspur fans, our £30million signing of Newcastle United’s Moussa Sissoko back in the summer of 2016 was always a very ‘curious case of’ given his initial performances for manager Mauricio Pochettino.
The player himself has spoken of a need to settle in at the club and adjust, but the 29-year-old has largely been completely reborn with his performances across the 2018/19 campaign, and he’s won plenty of fans over for his efforts on the pitch, receiving good praise in the process and he’s excelled in the central midfield role.
We won’t talk about his finishing though!
With the Frenchman more than helping to turn the first leg Champions League clash back in our favour when it came to our performance against Ajax the other week, pundit Danny Mills was quoted by Football Insider recently lavishing praise on both the player, but also our gaffer for tweaking things to really bring the best out of him.
“I think Sissoko is now playing in his more favoured position, in a more central role in midfield. When he first came in, he was used as a right midfielder – it didn’t really suit him. You know, he’s big, strong, powerful, he’s now got that – he’s box to box, up and down, putting in challenges, winning the ball, driving forward, that’s where you want him, that’s what you want him to do. Finally he’s been given that opportunity and he’s taken it so I think we’re now starting to see the player that occasionally we saw at Newcastle, maybe not often enough, and you can see now why Tottenham paid all that money for him and he’s now fulfilling that potential. I can’t see why he can’t keep that central midfield role. Tottenham have got a lot of injuries in that area, you need strength, you need pace – Eriksen is your free player, if you like. He is your luxury where you go ‘okay, let’s let a couple of people do some of his work so he can just go and express himself, he can find that space.’ You understand that as a player, it’s what happens. So yes, I think he can and I think the athleticism that he has, the energy that he has, the ability to break up play and drive forward I think is a huge bonus to Tottenham.”
High praise indeed, but Sissoko has been receiving it for most of the season given his turnaround in form, and we certainly need him at his best on Wednesday evening.
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