Tottenham Hotspur are reeling, to put it mildly, after a shock opening defeat to rivals Brentford, and the score line of 3-0 is actually softer than how poorly the Lilywhites played in this one. Spurs were simply not at it, second best in everything, especially physical tools, while they sat back and were picked apart as their midfield got completely overrun.
There will be reenforcements coming, though. In addition to potentially three new forwards in Savinho, Omar Marmoush, and Cody Gakpo to bolster the front line, the midfield will get better once James Maddison and Mateus Fernandes are ready to start instead of the woeful pairing of Conor Gallagher and Lucas Bergvall, and both Destiny Udogie and Micky van de Ven are going to return to the starting lineup.
Van de Ven's importance will be especially intriguing to see, because he is now the No. 1 captain, with Roberto de Zerbi somewhat surprisingly picking him. Even though Van de Ven is a great player with leadership traits, there will be a lot of skepticism, as Van de Ven was one of the players whose heads dropped before De Zerbi's arrival to save Spurs from relegation.
Micky van de Ven has to be a true captain for Tottenham
He was legitimately as poor and as big of a sulker as Cristian Romero last season, and while Van de Ven got a chance to save face under De Zerbi and perform a 180 on and off the pitch to now being a captain, who is to say that Romero would not have done the same if he did not get injured?
That is all history and revisionsim at this point, but what is known right now is that Tottenham Hotspur need Micky van de Ven to do a lot better than Jan Paul van Hecke and Marcos Senesi did as a duo against Brentford. Tottenham fans would have thought that there would not be much of a drop off at center back without Van de Ven, but not only was the opposite true, the interesting aspect is that Senesi was the better of the two, whereas Van Hecke is expected to be the one to start next to his countryman.
Tottenham are going to put a big focus on Van de Ven next weekend in central defense against Newcastle United, and after how disjointed Tottenham played against Brentford, fans are also going to focus a lot more on Van de Ven's leadership. They need Roberto De Zerbi to be 100 percent right about Van de Ven as a leader and captain of this team, because they cannot afford another Cristian Romero situation of a player getting too big headed or not being a real leader.
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