Tottenham Player Review: Harry Winks

It seems excessive to write up a full season review for a player who only made three Premier League starts with Tottenham, yet Harry Winks is worth talking about all the same.

Winks isn’t the first Academy graduate that Mauricio Pochettino entrusted with minutes, but he is the one with the clearest route into Tottenham’s first team.

That much is clear by looking at just how often Pochettino used Winks even if he didn’t start in the league. He started two of Spurs’ six Champions League group stage games, as well as six times total between the EFL Cup and FA Cup.

Most importantly, he was often the first man Pochettino would turn to off the bench. Winks appeared as a substitute 21 times this season in total, including 18 times in the Premier League.

The first hints that Winks was to enjoy a bigger role came in last summer’s preseason tour of Australian. The then-20-year-old played both matches alongside Victor Wanyama against Juventus and Atletico Madrid. Spurs would lose both friendlies, but there was no mistaking the chemistry the club’s newest midfielder had with their newest youngster.

That trend continued through the regular season, at least on those rare occasions the two got to play together. With Eric Dier now evidently back in a defensive role, it seems that Winks and Wanyama is the midfield pair of Tottenham’s future.

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There is, of course, one major obstacle in Winks’ way: Mousa Dembélé. Despite missing the first four matches of the season through suspension, the Belgian remained relatively healthy and proved as effective as ever in the center of the park. It’s hard to imagine Pochettino conjuring some excuse to drop Dembélé in favor of giving Winks minutes this past season.

That being said, Dembélé is turning 30 this summer. While he’s not shown his age over the last two seasons, his shelf life is clearly diminishing. Pochettino fielded Winks so often this season with one eye toward the young Englishman replacing Dembélé sometime soon.

Winks for Dembélé won’t really be a like-for-like replacement however. Winks’ game is more direct, more focused on pass-and-move than Dembélé’s kinetic dribbling. He also doesn’t quite utilize the press with the same poise and composure, but that’s presumably something that can be taught to the youngster.

With Wanyama’s range of motion, though, these differences aren’t all that difficult to overcome. If anything, Winks’ willingness to get in the mix of the attack might serve Spurs’ purposes even better. 

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This is all speculation at this point of course, but we got as good as look at Winks as we could have hoped for this season. Though injury struck him down in April, it’s likely that he will continue to grow into the team — perhaps even earn a regular role — next season and beyond.