James Maddison's 28th birthday: Reflecting on his time in N17

Tottenham Hotspur midfielder James Maddison has already celebrated his birthday pretty well, with his brace in Spurs’ 4-0 win over Manchester City at the Etihad. Still, let’s also celebrate by taking a look at his time in North London. 

Taking a look back at James Maddison's time at the club

It was in the summer of 2023 when Maddison joined the club, for a fee of around £40m, after his Leicester City side had been relegated after nine years in the top flight, five of which the midfielder was a part of himself. 

It did not take long for Maddison to make an impact at Spurs, providing two assists on his debut in a 2-2 draw away to Brentford. In his first four games, he would score in wins over AFC Bournemouth and Burnley. 

Soon after, he would provide another two assists in a 2-2 North London derby draw. He would then provide the match winning assist against Luton with ten men, before scoring against Fulham.

All of this was with superb general play, making things tick in the midfield and orchestrating attacks. Those stats will not include him forcing an own goal vs Crystal Palace, or opening up their defence for the second goal that evening.

Then, disaster struck on that fatal night at home to Chelsea on the 6th of November, with his next appearance coming on the 31st of January. 

It is safe to say he did not hit the same heights on his return from injury, which cost him a place in England’s squad for the European Championships. He would come back to Hotspur Way having had a summer off to shake off that injury. 

The midfielders season so far has been up and down, but has mostly been fairly good - generally playing as one of two number eights alongside Dejan Kulusevski. 

To start the season, Maddison would provide assists against Leicester and Everton, though it was his sublime performance in the 3-1 win over Brentford that really got his season started. 

Whilst he has, generally, played fairly well as a double eight along side Kulusevski, particularly in that win over Brentford — his best performance came in tonight’s win over Manchester City — a game where he had the midfield burden to himself, with Kulusevski on the wing. 

That is not just outcome bias as a result of his two goals — though they were of course very important. The midfielder had 64 touches and completed 2/2 dribbles, though more notably, won 9/12 of his ground duels.

Even when Kulusevski is on the wing, and Maddison has the safety net of Yves Bissouma and Pape Sarr, off the ball work is still very important in an Ange side, and the Spurs number 10 was really exceptional at that side of the game tonight. 

Whilst he has had a fairly decent start to this season, he had gone off the boil a bit of late, so let’s hope this performance can be the catalyst for the form we saw from the Brentford game onwards. If it is - perhaps we could see him back in the England squad under Thomas Tuchel.