Moussa Dembele has undoubtedly been one of the finest players for Tottenham since his £15 million move from Fulham in 2012. There are players who would provide workrate, guile, or vision, but Dembele is one of those names who would provide all these in one fine package. Of course, one of the negative aspects of the Belgian is losing his temperament quite quickly. He was suspended for the first four matches of the campaign, but Mauricio Pochettino can welcome him back to the team this weekend as Tottenham take on Sunderland at White Hart Lane.
Dembele’s return provides a potential talking point with the place of Victor Wanyama in the first team under threat. Pochettino said at the start of the season that the presence of Wanyama will help them overcome the absence of Dembele. However, the manager would be pleasantly surprised to see that Wanyama has been one of the better performers at the start of the campaign. He faces the difficult decision of dropping Wanyama in favour of Dembele, or even better, retaining both the players in the starting line-up.
It is a difficult decision indeed, but Dembele provides the much-needed attacking impetus. Wanyama has already opened his goal scoring account for Spurs, but he has proved to be much more stable in defence than Dembele. One aspect that led to Tottenham’s failed title challenge was the inability to defend. In this position, retaining a player like Wanyama in the team would be a major advantage to reintroduce some confidence into the back four.
Wanyama has committed a lot of fouls (2.3 per game), but he has also been actively involved in making interceptions (1.3 per game) and clearances (a quite impressive three per game). He has also been averaging 2 tackles per game in the four matches. Dembele’s statistics from last season revealed that he was slightly better than Wanyama defensively in aspects like interceptions (1.9 per game) and fouls (1.7 per game). However, he has made significantly fewer clearances and this may have contributed to the team’s downfall.
Wanyama was paired with Eric Dier in the 1-1 draw with Liverpool. Dembele would represent a significant upgrade over Dier given that he has the ability to contribute in attack. The pairing of Wanyama and Dembele could potentially be a match made in heaven since they complement each other in attack and defence quite brilliantly. It would also leave Dele Alli to focus only on attack.
