Spurs struck gold on "world-class" star who's a bit like Odegaard & Foden

It’s been an eventful campaign for Tottenham Hotspur this season, although given how last year went, that’s hardly a surprise.

Ange Postecoglou’s side have once again been enthralling to watch, although a significant reason is that you never know which team will show up.

Sometimes, the North Londoners are able to blitz Manchester City off the park, while other times, they’ll lose at home to winless Ipswich Town.

This tendency to bounce between spectacular and disastrous is perhaps best exemplified by the midfield, although there is one starter who’s been impressive for most of the season, someone who’s been compared to Martin Odegaard and Phil Foden.

Tottenham’s midfield options

Before we get to the player in question, it’s worth looking at some of Spurs’ other midfield stars and how they’ve performed this season, starting with co-vice-captain James Maddison, who has, unsurprisingly, impressed and disappointed this season.

For example, the former Leicester City star has racked up a great haul of five goals and five assists in 20 appearances but then looked miles off the pace and unable to influence proceedings in matches against Crystal Palace, Arsenal and Fulham, while not even being trusted to start against Chelsea, Ipswich or Aston Villa.

Likewise, Yves Bissouma has put in some of his best performances in a Lilywhite shirt this season.

Against City, in the League Cup, he made a goal-line clearance to deny Nico O’Reilly a guaranteed equaliser, and then against Everton, he made amends for his pre-season controversy by scoring an absolute screamer.

However, for every impressive display, the Mali international seems to put in a worrying one, with his “braindead” tackle on Moises Caicedo, as Jamie Carragher described it, just the latest example.

That said, while there are some serious issues with Spurs’ current midfield options, they have at least one superstar among their ranks, someone who’s made that area his own and has won comparisons to Odegaard and Foden.

The Spurs player like Odegaard & Foden

So, to get straight to the point, the Spurs ace compared to Odegaard and Foden is the incredible Dejan Kulusevski, but where have these comparisons come from?

Well, they primarily stems from FBref, which compares players in similar positions in Europe’s top five leagues, the Champions League and Europa League, then creates a list of the ten most comparable players for each one, and in this instance, has concluded that the Englishman is the seventh most similar midfielder to the Swede over the last 365 days, while the Norwegian is the eighth most similar.

The best way to see where this comparison has come from is to look at the underlying metrics in which the trio ranks closely, including, but not limited to, expected and actual assists, expected non-penalty goals, key passes and shot-creating actions, all per 90.

However, on top of the statistical similarities between the trio, there is also the fact that both the City ace and the former Juventus star will occasionally play out on the wing.

Likewise, the Arsenal captain spends a lot of time in games interchanging with Bukayo Saka on the right-hand side, even if he officially starts in midfield.

With that said, it’s not just the similarities to great players that make the Stockholm-born dynamo “world-class”, as described by talent scout Jacek Kulig, it’s also his output and tangible impact on games.

For example, in just 22 appearances so far this season, totalling 1469 minutes, the 24-year-old maestro has scored three goals and provided seven assists, equating to a goal involvement on average every 2.2 games, or every 146.9 minutes.

Ultimately, while Spurs have more than a few midfielders who seem incapable of maintaining a run of form at the moment, they also have a sensationally gifted talent in Kulusevski.

Related

Postecoglou may have found Tottenham’s new Serge Aurier in error-prone dud

The young international has made too many mistakes for Spurs this year.