Plenty of eyebrows were raised when Tottenham Hotspur shelled out a massive £30million to bring in Moussa Sissoko from Newcastle United back in the 2016 summer transfer window.
The now 30-year-old certainly took his time to settle in and adjust to life at the club, but the French international was basically reborn for us in the 2018/19 campaign and he won swathes of his doubters round with some magnificent performances, and he previously reflected on the reasons he believes made all the difference to his turn in form.
Having more than made the central midfield position his own last year, Sissoko has again largely hit the ground running for manager Mauricio Pochettino in the 2019/20 campaign and with the September international break in full flow, he was recently quoted by French outlet Le Parisien again reflecting on his improvement.
With so many original doubts about him, I was certainly interested in the part of the interview where he spoke about his own motivations to turn his Spurs spell around, as opposed to taking the presumed easier option and simply moving on.
“I did not want to stay on a failure. I never thought of leaving Tottenham; it gave me, even more, the desire to do well. I have a winning mentality; it has been like that throughout my career. I do not make any noise; I do not come to the media to say that I had to play.”
Having now become a key player for Poch following last years’ showings for the side, he added.
“Perhaps I have never felt as strong as today. I am comfortable, fulfilled, confident. It is often said that the best form of a player is between 28 and 30 years old. I did not believe it more than that, but I have certainly had my best season since starting playing football. I must continue to ride this wave. I say a lot more on the pitch. Before I was impressive thanks to my size, today I speak more, I ask more the ball, I try more things.”
It would be a cheap jibe to reference his goalscoring record here, but he has shown better on that front at other clubs earlier in his career. If he can now tick that box to his game, given the other improvements we’ve seen, few will be complaining in the future.
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