Why Tottenham must drop Maddison to keep slim top-four hopes alive
Midway through the second half of Sunday's North London Derby defeat to Arsenal, Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou made the decision to withdraw James Maddison. The England international struggled against the Gunners, evidenced in that returned a WhoScored rating of just 6.02.
While the 27-year-old was able to pick out a teammate well, ending the game with a pass success rate of 91.9%, Maddison created just one goalscoring chance on home turf. The former Leicester man mustered just one shot in 64 minutes, while one unsuccessful touch leading to a turnover in possession and one dispossession capped a fairly subdued afternoon for the summer signing.
Of course, Spurs were going to struggle against their north London neighbours. Arsenal have conceded just 28 league goals this season, and had kept six successive away clean sheets prior to the short trip across the capital to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. They boast the best backline in England, so prying apart Mikel Arteta's side was always going to be far easier said than done.
That said, this wasn't just a poor day at the office for Maddison but rather prolonging what has been a disappointing few months for the England international. In the opening months of the season as Spurs started life under Ange Postecoglou brightly, Maddison was superb. Then disaster struck when Chelsea made the trip to north London. Spurs unbeaten record ended in comical manner as Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie saw red either side of half time in an eventual 4-1 loss.
Micky van de Ven pulled up with a hamstring issue in the first half before Maddison was forced off at the break against the Blues owing to an ankle probkem. It was a game in which everything that could have gone wrong for Spurs ultimately did. Maddison wouldn't make another league appearance until the 3-2 win over Brentford at the end of January.
And while he's looked bright in occasion, Maddison has gone well off the boil following a fine start to life in the capital. While ankle ligament damage is enough to impact any player given the importance of the part of the body when it comes to turn in tight areas in the final third, Maddison's struggles have been magnified by Spurs' dip in form. Up until a spell on the sidelines, the club's creative star failed to create multiple goalscoring chances in just two of 10 matches.
Following his return to fitness, Maddison has done so in five of 12 games, and failed to make a key pass in wins over Aston Villa and Luton, though a goal against the former masked a subdued display at Villa Park. There's been a clear drop off in that Maddison's WhoScored rating has fallen by 0.86 both before and after the 4-1 loss to Chelsea in November, that marking the second biggest dip in the Premier League over that period.
He's been struggling to influence games in the same manner as he managed in the months following his arrival from Leicester and that means Spurs have been more turgid going forward, so often relying on the impact of full-backs Destiny Udogie, when available, and Pedro Porro to hurt opponents. With that, the north London side are far easier to defend against, knowing that if sides can pack the middle of the park, then this'll more often than not force Spurs to the flanks.
Spurs, after all, do have the worst cross accuracy (18.6%) in England's top tier this term, meaning they when the ball is put forward, defences can easily counter Ange Postecoglou's side. With that, if Maddison isn't creating, or at the very least making a general nuisance of himself, then he's effectively a passenger. He's a completely different player from the once that took the league by storm in the opening months of the season.
Either way, with just five games to play, the calls for Maddison to be dropped from the Spurs starting XI are growing louder with each passing week and few can blame supporters for wanting to see the vice-captain start from the bench, starting with Thursday's game at Stamford Bridge.
