Tottenham’s line-up against AZ Alkmaar said it all. Heung-Min Son, Dejan Kulusevski, Dominic Solanke were all rested to preserve minutes for key attackers – but James Maddison lined up alongside a string of squad players.
Albeit named as Tottenham’s captain for the night to provide leadership on the pitch, Ange Postecoglou would not have used Maddison in such a fixture a year ago.
It is not the first time this week where Maddison’s squad status has come into question.
Last weekend, the midfielder created five chances in the opening 45 minutes against West Ham – more than any Premier League player managed across the entire weekend – including laying on the pass for Kulusevski’s equaliser. Tottenham went in at half-time drawing and if anyone was going to break down the Hammers in the second half, it would have been Maddison.
When he was suddenly replaced by Pape Sarr at half-time, the immediate thought was the switch was injury related. Until Postecoglou announced the removal of Tottenham’s brightest spark was a tactical call.
“I just felt we needed some more running power in that midfield area,” said the Spurs manager. “Pape gives us a real good energy there and I thought that helped us in the second half.”
Introducing Sarr ended up being the right call by Postecoglou. First of all, Spurs looked a lot more balanced in the second period, restricting West Ham to scraps after an open first half.
Sarr helped through his expert duel-winning ability, winning twice as many in the second period than Maddison managed in the first and played a key role in two of Spurs’ second half goals.
First, his key pass to Son allowed the South Korean forward to set up Yves Bissouma. Sarr later fed the Tottenham captain, after winning the ball back impressively, to get the fourth goal in an eight-minute flurry at the start of the second half. Postecoglou’s bold move paid off.
But the removal of Maddison – plus the selection against AZ Alkmaar on Thursday night – spoke volumes about his place in the Spurs squad. This time last year, Maddison was on course to be Premier League player of the season with the way he started the last campaign. He was an irreplaceable cog in the Tottenham midfield.
Now, while Maddison still starts every game and impresses in a lot of attacking metrics, he is also yet to complete 90 minutes for Spurs this season. When Son, Kulusevski and Solanke start league matches, they tend to last the distance.
So why is Maddison deemed so dispensable by Postecoglou? Perhaps it is because Spurs have an even more impressive creative fulcrum in Kulusevski.
The Swedish forward has been used in a deeper attacking midfield role for most of this season so far and has unarguably been Tottenham’s brightest and most consistent player this term.
No Premier League player has created more chances from open play than Kulusevski so far this season and that is partly due to his excellent ball-carrying ability.
Kulusevski is also crucial to Spurs’ high press. Postecoglou’s side sit top of possessions won in the final third out of all the teams in Europe’s top five leagues with 60 so far. And at the top of Spurs’ list for that category is Kulusevski with 13 regains in high areas.
Maddison, meanwhile, is streets clear at the top of Europe’s top five leagues in terms of Expected Assists underlying how much he gives to his team-mates. But again, Kulusevski also brings that same support to Spurs in a different way.
In his attacking midfield role, Kulusevski tends to drift to the right wing to create an overload on that flank. It has been massively supportive to Brennan Johnson, whose run of six goals in six games came to an end this week.
It is a free role for Kulusevski that makes it difficult for opponents to track Spurs’ fluid attacking set-up. “They can’t know how to defend against me when I don’t even know where I’m going!” said the Swede after the West Ham win.
“It’s all freedom and every game is different. I have that freedom, my team-mates trust me, the manager trusts me.”
Maddison also has that ability to drift wide and affect matters. His ability to play with Son and Destiny Udogie in a triangle on the left is similar to Kulusevski’s role on the opposite flank – and has been a successful tactic for Postecoglou at Spurs.
But playing Maddison and Kulusevski together in the midfield at the same time, as shown in the first half against West Ham at the weekend, has balance concerns. And if Bissouma and Sarr are needed as a double midfield pivot, then one of the attacking fulcrums has to make way.
With Kulusevski playing so well and being Spurs’ most important player this season, it puts Maddison’s role in the Tottenham starting line-up under threat. The 27-year-old lost his England place over the summer, is he running the risk of losing his club spot too?