Tottenham Hotspur’s pursuit of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has been ramped up this week as fresh reports have emerged from a more than reliable source.
According to Matt Law at the Telegraph, Spurs are very confident that in landing the Southampton star in the summer with Jose Mourinho seeing him as one of his top priorities – just as long as he can raise funds through selling some of the current squad.
The 24-year-old has just one year to run on his contract at St Mary’s and has made it clear of his intentions to further his career at a more prestige outfit, thus seeing the north Londoners as an ideal destination.
Should Spurs pay out for Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg?
Yes please!
No thanks!
Spurs are hoping to pay around £20m for his services whilst it appears as if the Saints are demanding a much-higher £35m fee, although the ball is surely in Daniel Levy’s court given the Dane’s contract situation.
Back in January, Sky Sports reported that Mourinho was desperate to sign a ‘positional midfielder’ and really, the club should look no further than Hojbjerg.
Saints goalkeeper Angus Gunn has talked him up to be a “great leader,” something which is perhaps lacking in the centre of the pitch.
Arguably, Spurs are yet to replace the industrious Mouse Dembele who ran things in Mauricio Pochettino’s engine room. However, the former Bayern Munich lynchpin has actually outperformed the Belgian in his prime.
We’ll take his final full season in north London (2017/18) for comparison – Dembele averaged just 1.3 tackles, 1.2 interceptions and 0.6 key passes – while Hojbjerg this campaign has averaged double the amount of tackles with 2.6 as well as 1.5 interceptions, 1.6 clearances, 1.4 shots and 1 key pass per match, via WhoScored.
Eric Dier’s transition to central defence has increased the need for a defensive midfielder and there can’t be many options better than Hojbjerg, particularly given the glowing comparison above.
He comes with plenty of Premier League experience having featured over 100 times for Southampton since joining them in 2016 and quite rightly, he deserves a go at a team battling for Europe.
Southampton have averaged 48.3% possession so far this season. Spurs in 2017/18 averaged 61.16%. A player in a team that has less of the ball is going to have far more opportunities to win the ball. It also shouldn’t really surprise anyone that Dembele wasn’t very creative, playing in a team that had Eriksen (2.6 key passes per game) and Dele (1.8) pulling the strings ahead of him.
Why not have a look at how he compares in the role Dembele excelled at: bringing the ball out from the back, to link between the lines? Hojbjerg has managed 1.3 dribbles per game, compared with Dembele’s 2.4 in 17/18; and he’s miscontrolled it 2.1 times per game, against Dembele’s 0.9 times. He’s done a bit better for ball retention, losing it only 0.9 times compared with Dembele’s slightly more careless 1.2 times per match (perhaps not surprising when you consider he’s not dribbling as often as Mousa did). But if he’s not dribbling as much, you’d expect his passing to be good, right? No, it’s only been 77.4% compared with peak-Dembele’s 92.2%.
He’s a very good player and, who knows, he may even become as good as (or maybe even better than) Dembele was, but it takes a very selective reading of the stats to say he’s ‘outshone’ peak-Dembele this season. I know there’s a bit of a cult about Mousa and some Spurs fans think he’s overrated – everyone’s entitled to their opinion – but his numbers in 17/18 were freakishly good, while Hojbjerg’s efforts in 19/20 have been roughly on a par with Harry Winks’ five appearances in the Champions League this season (have a look, they’re very similar numbers): good, but certainly not dazzling.