The disjointed performances that have characterized the early part of Tottenham’s season are set to come to an end with the return of Mousa Dembélé.
If that sounds like hyperbole, it is. No one player in this Tottenham team full of stars both established and budding makes the whole side click. Harry Kane’s goals, Hugo Lloris’ saves and Eric Dier’s tackles are all taken in aggregate to create an exceptionally competitive team.
That being said, there’s perhaps no one player available to Mauricio Pochettino quite as influential as Mousa Dembélé. If we can indulge in a bit of metaphor, he is the oil that allows the Tottenham machine to chug along at optimal efficiency.
No player is as involved in each phase of play as Dembélé. Out of possession, he’s among the club’s most aggressive retrievers of the ball while also being among the gentlest. Despite his six match ban for gouging the eye of Chelsea’s Diego Costa, Dembélé only picked up three yellow cards in 29 matches last season.
In possession, he’s among Tottenham’s most penetrative players going forward. He’s not a playmaker in the mold of Christian Eriksen — his passing leaves plenty to be desired. Rather, he’s uniquely capable of retaining possession in the form of close control and dribbling, driving the ball upfield until he can lay it off onto a teammate better suited to finish off a play.
Dembélé might lack a final ball — his scored three times and set up only one assist in the Premier League last season — but he finds a way to be tremendously influential in the final third all the same.
It’s a spectrum of contributions that is notoriously hard to sum up in a single word. Is he a box-to-box midfielder? Is he a deep-lying playmaker? Is he a destroyer?
These labels are irrelevant, of course. To Pochettino, Dembélé is the on-field embodiment of his entire playing philosophy. Press early, often and high up the pitch, then drive the ball toward the center of the opposition’s box.
Other players — specifically Victor Wanyama and Dele Alli — have come in this season and attempted to replicate Dembélé’s unique contributions. And they’ve mostly failed.
Which isn’t to suggest they played poorly. Far from it. Wanyama was undoubtedly the star of the win over Crystal Palace, and Alli sparkled in central midfield as Tottenham looked to counter off of Liverpool’s press.
Neither effort was exactly what Dembélé does however. Wanyama was rangy and omnidirectional, Alli was quick with a break forward, a shot, an incisive pass. These efforts appeared to happen in, for lack of a better word, isolation. They didn’t up the game of the players around them. They didn’t, to continue to metaphor, lubricate the gears of Tottenham’s sputtering attack.
Dembélé’s introduction in the second half of the 2-1 loss against Monaco Wednesday showed exactly what Tottenham had been missing. The attack appeared instantly to be playing at a higher level, both literally and figuratively. Dembélé’s reliable shuttling of the ball forward created a higher baseline of operations for Tottenham to play atop in Monaco’s third.
Ultimately Monaco’s defense proved too talented on the day, but one gets the impression that it would not have held so well had Dembélé been available from the start.
Sunday’s match against Sunderland will likely be Dembélé’s first start of the season. If Wednesday or all of last season is any indication, it could also mark the first match in which Tottenham actually looked like Tottenham.
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