Tottenham Hotspur's blockbuster 60 million euro center back signing Jan Paul van Hecke made his debut for the club on Saturday afternoon at the Gtech Stadium against local rivals Brentford, and his day could not have gone any worse.
Although he was definitely hung out to dry by his midfielders, especially young Lucas Bergvall, Van Hecke was equally culpable in a 3-0 loss that honestly looked headed for an even bigger blowout defeat before Mateus Fernandes and Rodrigo Bentancur relieved Bergvall and Conor Gallagher at the half time interval.
Van Hecke was billed as an elite ball playing center back and did look like one in the preseason, but he was stumbling all over himself and could barely string a few decent passes forward as Spurs were totally dominated in possession by Brentford for much of the match.
Jan Paul van Hecke has to respond for Roberto De Zerbi
Defensively, Van Hecke was even worse. He looked completely all over the place, aggressively stepping out of position for no apparent reason. Cristian Romero frustrated Spurs fans over the years by stepping out too much and leaving space with poor positional discipline, but at least he more than made up for those ills by 1) actually winning the ball and 2) playing very well as a passer and even dribbler when he did have the ball.
Jan Paul van Hecke disappointingly did none of that against Brentford, and he was so poor in terms of his positioning that he often would not even be in the vicinity of the ball going into the box, leaving Antonin Kinsky completley hung out to dry and left for dead. If it were not for Marcos Senesi recording seven combined tackles and interceptions and both he and left back Andy Robertson blocking a whopping four shots with two goal saving tackles between them, Spurs would have lost by at least five.
There is no doubt that what Van Hecke did against Brentford was inexcusable, and Tottenham Hotspur are expecting a lot more from him. They paid significantly more than they got back from the Cristian Romero sale later in the window, even though Van Hecke had just one year left on his contract, which led many around the Premier League to raise their eyebrows at the move.
Tottenham spent big on Van Hecke to back Roberto De Zerbi, and now Van Hecke has to respond quickly to back De Zerbi's faith in him because this was as bad of a center back performance as we have seen this decade from a Tottenham player.
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