Is Townsend Back for Tottenham?
By Ryan Wrenn
Sky Sports provides a little tidbit of dressing room rumor to sate our appetite for Proper Football news until Tottenham’s return to action against West Ham on Sunday. Apparently – at least according to Sky’s anonymous sources – Andros Townsend is back in the running for a spot on the first team.
This rumor comes a barely two and a half weeks after Townsend took to the pitch after the 3-1 win over Aston Villa and, for lack of a better term, threw a temper tantrum. While out training after most of the players had returned to the locker room, Townsend and Tottenham fitness coach Nathan Gardiner got involved some manner of tussle. The incident was reportedly in response to 18-year-old Josh Onomah being substituted into the game in the 88th minute. Apparently Townsend took issue with the younger academy product inching above him in the depth chart, even if it was only in a relatively meaningless five minute cameo.
Mauricio Pochettino took quick action after the incident, publicly calling out Townsend in the post-match press conference and then sending him to train with the development squad instead of the first team. It was a swift but necessary punishment for the petulant winger.
Though his behavior on that night cannot be excused, it’s hard not to feel at least some sympathy for Townsend. The 24-year-old has spent most of his life at Tottenham, first joining the academy when he was eight years old. He came up through the system, went on a preposterously long series of loans with fair to middling clubs at multiple levels of English football and has been a semi-regular member of Tottenham’s first team for the last two seasons. There’s no denying the sacrifices he’s made and the work he’s done for the club, and to some extent that’s a debt the club owes to him.
More from Tottenham News
- Storybook ending after difficult period for Tottenahm’s Richarlison
- Tottenham comeback showcased invaluable intangible Ange has cultivated
- Tottenham player ratings in 2-1 comeback win over Sheffield United
- Tottenham projected starting 11 for Sheffield United
- Tottenham’s Richarlison says he’s going to seek psychological help
All that being said, unless your name is Steven Gerrard or Wayne Rooney, you can’t just expect to be put into the starting XI. Football is – or should be – a meritocracy, where the quality of your work earns you a spot on the pitch. And the quality of Townsend’s work is frankly not worth much more than a seat on the bench at this point.
With every low percentage shot from distance, with every cut inside when he should have gone wide, with every loss of possession, Townsend has found himself further and further away from Pochettino’s plans. Those occasionally selfish, frequently amateurish habits of his are simply not conducive to the way this Tottenham team plays now. He got away with it under André Villas-Boas because that team needed risk takers, and again under Tim Sherwood because there’s nothing that guileless managers like more than big, flashy and ultimately fruitless attacks on goal. But in the well-drilled, highly coordinated set up that Pochettino favors, Townsend’s style simply doesn’t fit.
Townsend’s dropped occasional hints that he’s wising up. In a substitute appearance against Sunderland this term, and then again later that week against Qarabag FK in the Europe League, Townsend was precisely what Tottenham needed him to be. He played wide, drew out defenders, sent crosses into the box. It was thankless but necessary work, the kind of thing Townsend needed to do to get back into first team contention.
Next: Tottenham Might Lose Saido Berahino to Chelsea
That play earned him a few more chances, but he largely squandered them. In high leverage substitute appearances as Tottenham tried to earn some advantage against stern opponents like Monaco and Swansea, Townsend reverted back to his old self, wasting chances in the opposition’s third and proving himself more liability than asset. No, not all the blame can be heaped on his shoulders for those two draws, but it’s difficult to make a case that his presence on the pitch was actually helping Tottenham.
His return to first team contention – if indeed he is returning – is then something of a surprise. Ill disciple combined with ill form usually means a player is casually shuffled out of the exit. News that Townsend has drawn some interest from Premier League sides looking for his particularly brand of daring-do in the January transfer window should have only accelerated that process. If Townsend is in the first team come Sunday – especially the starting XI in Érik Lamela’s absence – then that possibility becomes muddled. Maybe Townsend has had a talking to, maybe he’s proved himself training with the kids or maybe he’s simply being put in the shop window. In any case, one gets the impression that this is Townsend’s final shot with his boyhood club. For his sake and Tottenham’s, let’s hope he makes the most of it.