As bad as Tel: 3/10 Spurs star should not have lasted 90 minutes

Well, that was not the sort of performance Tottenham Hotspur fans would have been hoping for to kickstart their efforts in the Europa League knockout rounds.

Instead of taking the game to their hosts, Ange Postecoglou’s side were timid, predictable and looked bereft of ideas right up to the last few minutes of the game.

If anything, AZ Alkmaar will likely be annoyed that they aren’t taking a more considerable lead with them to North London next week.

There were lacklustre displays all over the pitch for the Lilywhites, but two players stood out for the wrong reasons, one of them being Mathys Tel.

Tels’s peformance vs Alkmaar

When Spurs announced the signing of Tel on loan early last month, there was a lot of understandable excitement from fans, but apart from a goal against Aston Villa in the FA Cup, he’s not really done much of anything since joining the club.

Unfortunately, it was much of the same against AZ tonight, as while he had a few chances to make something happen, he was practically anonymous the entire time he was on the pitch.

In fact, the young Frenchman was so ineffective up top that Postecoglu decided he had to take him off at half-time, put Wilson Odobert out wide and move Son Heung-min into the middle, who wasn’t much better.

Unsurprisingly, the 19-year-old loanee did not impress the watching press, as football.london’s Alasdair Gold awarded him just a 3/10 match rating at full-time.

It might sound harsh, but it’s an opinion more than backed up by his statistics, as in 45 minutes of action, he amassed a combined expected goals and assists figure of 0.01, failed to take a single shot, failed in 50% of his dribbles, took just 14 touches and lost 50% of his ground duels.

In all, it was the right decision by Postecoglou to take him off at half-time, but there was another attacker who was just as poor and somehow played the entire game.

The Spurs star just as bad as Tel

Brennan Johnson started the game off the right, and while he’s been quite effective at points this season, he certainly was not tonight.

Just like his younger teammate, the Welsh international was practically anonymous for large parts of the match, and then when he did find himself in dangerous areas or with the chance to make something happen, he’d wait too long or make the wrong choice.

Gold was equally disappointed with the 23-year-old’s display, giving him a 3/10 match rating and highlighting that as well as offering ‘very little going forward’, he also ‘seemed to stop marking Parrott for the corner that led to Bergvall’s own goal.’

Again, while it might sound overly harsh considering he didn’t score the own goal and there weren’t any stand-out misses, the former Nottingham Forest ace’s statistics more than back up Gold’s damning summary of his performance.

In 94 minutes, he amassed a combined expected goal and assists figure of just 0.20, failed to have a single shot on target, failed in four of five attempted dribbles, took 46 touches but played just one key pass, failed in 100% of his crosses and long balls, lost 60% of his duels, lost the ball 13 times and committed a foul.

Ultimately, it was a dismally poor showing from a player capable of so much more, and just like Tel, Johnson should have been hooked early into the second half at the very latest.

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