Tottenham End of Season Review: Ryan Mason

It could just be that Ryan Mason will never get a chance to properly redeem himself at Tottenham.

It’s fair to say that Mason’s 2014/15 season wasn’t the most stellar in Premier League history. Though far from a complete bust, Mason did not live up to Mauricio Pochettino’s faith in him.

His efforts alongside Nabil Bentaleb were often aimless, and no small part of the blame for Tottenham’s inability to stop goals at their source falls on his shoulders. The space he left in behind him — and his refusal to close it down when asked — was borderline criminal. Mason is lucky Pochettino did not think to include him in last summer’s transfer purge.

Indeed, far from exiling Mason, Pochettino saw fit to give him a second chance. With Eric Dier alongside him, he would have the freedom to move forward and add to the attack when Tottenham were in possession. What defensive lapses might result would not have nearly the same consequences what with Dier there to clean up.

As it happened, Mason actually seemed to learn from him mistakes. Even with Dier there to do all the dity work, he seemed more congnizant of the space in behind him — at least in his opening run of four matches after the opening day loss to Manchester United — and it seemed as if he might have permanent place in Pochettino’s plans.

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And then he scored his first goal of the campaign. That usually doesn’t end a player’s run in the starting XI, but in the case of Mason’s match-winning goal against Sunderland in November, it did. A mistimed tackle happened in conjunction with the goal, and Mason was immediately taken off the pitch.

By the time returned to full fitness six weeks later, Dele Alli had ascended the ranks and Mousa Dembélé had been shifted back alongside Dier. That combination would persist right up through the last weeks of the season, and when combined with another injury, it meant that Mason’s chances all but dried up.

Though he managed a solid cameo appearance in February’s matches against Fiorentina — which included another goal — it wouldn’t be enough. He only managed to make it back into the starting XI following Dembélé’s season-ending suspension.

Those two matches — home at Southampton and away at Newcastle — were both losses, and it’s not too difficult to draw a line between those results in Mason’s presence in the midfield. It’s not even that he doesn’t do what Dembélé does. No one on the squad can do that but Dembélé. It’s that he seemed fundamentally out of sync with the rest of the side. His passing was uninspired, his runs forward tepid and his defensive lapses returned in full force.

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The blame for those two losses deserves to be spread around of course, but it’s easy to imagine things turning out differently had Tottenham been able to call someone else up in Dembélé’s stead, someone more capable of playing at Tottenham’s level.

And that comes to the core of Mason’s season. Tottenham as a whole seems to have outgrown him. In all likelihood there’s not a place for his skillset in the side, and it would be a genuine surprise if he’s still with the team come September 1st.

Final Grade: C-