Who Steps Up at Spurs for Dembélé?
By Ryan Wrenn
With news coming down the pipe that Spurs’ midfielder Mousa Dembélé is set for a two week stint on the sidelines with ankle knock, who can we expect to fill the Belgian’s boots?
During a season in which a promising underclass of players has threatened to break through – or actually have already broken through – to the first team due in no small part to injuries, this question is surprisingly important.
The cycle of injuries that framed of the season’s first half meant that players like Ryan Mason, Tom Carroll and Dele Alli have each been given chances to prove themselves in a teammate’s stead.
Mason looked like an early contender to lock in a long term role in the starting XI, only to be felled right at the peak of his game. His winning goal for Spurs against Sunderland also directly resulted in a knee injury that would keep him out of contention just for long enough for Dele Alli to begin his current run of stellar form.
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It’s Alli who actually looks to be the biggest benefactor – if one could use that word in this context without being too crass – of injury in the Spurs squad. Upon joining the squad over the summer, Alli’s chances looked fairly slim. There was simply too much tried-and-true talent on the Spurs roster to think that he might be given anything more than regular substitute appearances.
Yet in the weeks following Mason’s injury, Alli began a run of starts that continues up to this day. Indeed, he’s played some excellent football in that span of time, doing so well as to keep Spurs’ third most expensive signing of all time, Heung-min Son, out of the starting lineup entirely.
Once he returned from injury, Mason himself also found himself iced out by Alli’s exceptional form, only making substitute appearances up until a start against Chelsea wherein he was injured a second time.
That second injury seems to have cleared the way for Tom Carroll. This season was slated to be the 23-year-old Englishman’s chance to prove his worth to Mauricio Pochettino, but early starts in the Europa League and Capital One Cup were evidently deemed not up to snuff. He barely got a look in on the team until he was given a start as part of a heavily rotated squad for the relatively unimportant final Europa League group stage match against Monaco.
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He performed well enough – playing the full ninety minutes and scoring his first goal for Spurs – that Pochettino saw fit to give him his first Premier League start three days later against Newcastle. Even if he didn’t turn in the best game in that 2-1 loss, that has not yet dissuaded Pochettino. Carroll has been given minutes in each game since, including a start on Monday against Watford.
All of which makes it clear that Carroll is most likely to fill the void left by Dembélé in the upcoming Premier League game against Everton and the subsequent FA Cup tie against Leicester City, if only because he’s the current flavor of the month.
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The clearout of the roster’s deadweight in the summer mean that there’s no player on this Spurs side that Pochettino doesn’t trust to some meaningful extent. He’s willing to give minutes to Alli and Carroll – along with some cameo appearances by Clinton Njie and Josh Onomah – because he’s confident that they are the right players for this Spurs squad, if not now then soon enough.
In that way the injuries to the Spurs starting XI this season have been something of a blessing. They’ve given Pochettino the excuse to start players who might, on other teams, be consigned to attempting to shine on the development squad or out on loan. Whatever success Carroll and players like him earn this season will come as a direct result in Pochettino’s confidence in the team he’s picked and his overall process.