TTLB Opinion: This Championship midfielder brings a lot of structure to the current roster – Daniel Levy is already on it

With the summer coming around, Tottenham and Daniel Levy have been looking to expand their options in the middle of the park, and Daniel Levy has already been looking at a list of transfer targets who can make an impact for the North Londoners immediately and over the long term, and Jobe Bellingham ideally fits the profile of someone who has the capacity to bring some quality to the roster while having the potential to become a world-class midfielder.

And if the Lilywhites do manage to pull off a deal amid growing Premier League interest, his arrival wouldn’t just be a future-proof signing, but it would be one of the most tactically flexible options that Ange Postecoglou could ask for.

Let’s first understand Jobe…

Let’s forget that last name for a moment and establish a fact – Jobe is not Jude 2.0. He is a different kind of midfielder; he is more rangy and way more vertical than his brother. More importantly, he is more off-the-ball orientated. And if we get into his development at Sunderland of late, the teenager has developed into a high-touch, box-to-box player who likes to get the ball at his feet in transitions and quick combinations complemented by his intelligent off-ball movement.

Jobe boasts a large frame (6’2”) but still has that mobility and work rate which have particularly turned eyes from a lot of English top-tier clubs, and then he has been showing a sense of his positional maturity in the middle of the park, which at such a young age makes it intriguing. He is not someone who wants to be running the game; instead, he plays better when he is more part of a system that lets him connect phases and arrive late into spaces.

Now how does that translate into the system that Ange Postecoglou has deployed at Hotspur Way?

See, if he were to be deployed in the current midfield structure, he could play a couple of different roles. One would be in a pivot pair with one player around him, and you can also slot him in a free #8 role much like how we have seen Mikel Arteta use Declan Rice off late. You need to remember that Jobe is not a controlling pivot just yet, but he does bring a sense of a hybrid interior midfielder on the pitch and is ideal for that left-sided No. 8 role in a three-man midfield. Now if you look at the role, he needs to be doing a few things right; he needs to be pushing into half-spaces and combining properly with inverted full-backs or wide forwards while ensuring that he is a defensive presence in transitional situations. Moreover, being an eight in this team, he will also be tasked with making those third man runs into the box. And we have seen Bellingham do all of these at the Championship level.

So if Tottenham are looking to have somebody rotate with Maddison or operate in a 3-man midfield who brings some energy and press resistance into the second phase, then Bellingham is a natural fit. And his ceiling in this role (#8), in my opinion, is quite higher than Kulusevski’s in central spaces.

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• TTLB Opinion: Tottenham target Branthwaite and Guehi – but who makes more sense?
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Author Opinion

Signing Jobe is not a headline transfer that many supporters want Daniel Levy to make, but this is a smart investment who can bring a lot of structure to how Tottenham play. He brings so much vertical flexibility to Ange given how he can play in multiple midfield roles.