‘So dominant’… Ange Postecoglou told he already has the next Mousa Dembele at Tottenham | OneFootball

Tottenham Hotspur have been told they have a Mousa Dembele-esque player in their midfielder Yves Bissouma.

The Mali international has returned from AFCON duty and even made a return to the starting XI on the weekend in the game against Wolves.

That was Yves Bissouma’s first start in months under Ange Postecoglou after suspension and internatinal duty.

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Yves Bissouma likened to Dembele

One player who was rated highly by both players and fans was the Belgian midfielder during his time in north London.

He was not a player who returned many goals or assists, however, he had a strong style of play which allowed him to glide beyond the opposition.

And Bissouma has shown some aspects of that in a Spurs shirt earlier in the campaign when his form was a bit better.

Speaking on the Gold & Guest Talk Tottenham podcast, journalist Alasdair Gold has likened the two midfielders as having similar styles of play: ‘Bissouma was so dominant in the opposition half as well. He would drag the ball past about two or three players. And so when you had a team like Wolves that were sitting back, he would take players out of position and that would suddenly create space for other players and are such a big thing and a part of why Spurs did have a lot of success with that midfield trio,’ he said.

‘It’s a bit like [Mousa] Dembele. Dembele wasn’t a guy that you were going to get many shots at goal from. He wasn’t a guy that you were going to get killer final ball from what he what he would do was in that just before the final third almost, you know, just kind of area midway in the opposition half. He would take a couple of players out of the game with a little turn with a little bit of holding the ball just anything and that would allow, suddenly, everyone else in the attack to suddenly have the more freedom that they previously had.’

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Spurs needing midfield consistency

The defeat against Wolves on the weekend was not one which the team can look back on positively with just a couple of players coming away from it with any credit.

Bissouma was not one of those, and he was even questioned by Gold for his part in Wolves’ winning goal which saw a real lack of effort on his behalf.

But he certainly did show encouraging form at the beginning of the season which made him look like the player we thought we were buying back in 2022 from Brighton & Hove Albion.

James Maddison, Pape Matar Sarr and Rodrigo Bentancur are all battling it out for spots in Postecoglou’s starting XI which leaves Bissouma needing to show his best form.

Fortunately for him, he may be granted some time in the XI as Bentancur continues to recover from a long spell on the sidelines through injury.

However, he may need to quickly rediscover the form he was showing in the early stages of the campaign if he is to nail down that starting spot under the 58-year-old.