The Belgian media have always been on the side of Toby Alderweireld when it comes to his Tottenham woes, which is understandable.
They’ve also, in the whole but with some exceptions, long been on the side of players such as Thibaut Courtois and Dedryck Boyata as they tried to manoeuvre transfer situations to suit themselves, so given that Alderweireld hasn’t really done anything like that, it’s a fair response.
However, that sometimes seems to allow for assumption and rumour, and perhaps information fed from agents, to be treated as accepted fact.
Tuesday’s edition of HLN has a look at the defender’s situation. Right now, Alderweireld ‘feels fantastic’. His club situation is better, he’s happy with his national team, and he became a father last week. It’s cloud nine stuff.
This is a big difference to earlier this year, when HLN explain that it was no fault of the player that Tottenham turned against him. All he did was call off contract negotiations.
It’s stated he was ‘ruthlessly sidelined’ bu Mauricio Pochettino and ‘there were even mental games involved’.
An example of this is given: When recovering from a severe hamstring injury, Alderweireld wasn’t allowed home until his teammates had gone.
Sometimes he’d be at the training ground and see them drive out.
On the scale of mental games, it’s not near the top and there’s every chance it was a misunderstanding.
The Tottenham player struggled through whilst always keeping the World Cup in Russia in his mind.
