If there’s been one major positive for Tottenham, amid the many so far this season, it’s the performances of Micky van de Ven.
The youngster arrived a big move from Wolfsburg in the summer and has slotted seamlessly into life in the Premier League, looking comfortable and proving to be the ideal ball playing defender for Ange Postecoglou’s system.
His displays have not gone unnoticed and earned plenty of praise to boot, so much so that it seems the Tottenham man is now being used as an example to criticise others. At least, that’s what journalist Suleyman Öztürk has done today.
He’s been covering Ajax and the problems they’ve faced at the beginning of this season, namely a lack of style or substance.
The Dutch side are currently struggling to develop any kind of system under new manager Maurice Steijn, a fact reflected in them sitting 14th in the table with five points from five games so far.
Those watching have been less than impressed by what they’ve seen so far, with it seeming that the Dutch giants are lurching from disaster to disaster at this moment in time.
Öztürk has been commenting on that today and used the current Tottenham star as an example of the problem the current squad is facing.
“The trick as a trainer or scout is to have an open mind,” he wrote.
“Then you start to see properties that fit within a larger whole, if that larger whole is present. Why a player is failing. Why internationals or expensive purchases give away big spaces,” he wrote.
“Why the build-up from behind is so dramatic that you can hardly speak of a build-up. Micky van de Ven would have no idea who to pass to at Ajax in Josip Sutalo or Jorrel Hato’s place.
“There is no organisation and no structure, so much is based on chance. It can go right, and it can go wrong, and you can then hang that on individuals.”
