James Maddison featured for the first time since November today, coming on in the 73′ of the 1-0 FA Cup 4th round loss to Manchester City. Having now fully completed his rehabilitation from injury, perhaps manager Ange Postecoglu will hand him a start in Spurs’ next match, when they host Brentford, in the league, in five days time.
In addition to Maddison, we have some other Spurs news and notes to cover, in what has been a very eventful Friday.
Everyone who writes about world football is currently speculating about who will succeed Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool. We have seen numerous top LFC manager candidates articles, and we even made one ourselves.
While we didn’t include Postecoglu in ours, many had him on their lists. And if you want to know what Postecoglu thought of the Klopp news.
Here is what he said on ITV Sport:
“Look I’m as surprised as anyone else because he’s a top manager and they’re flying at the moment. But also understanding in the back of my mind that probably all of us who have been in the game for quite a while know, it’s the constant thought in our heads, because we know how much you need to put into this position.”
He was also asked if he could relate to what Klopp said about getting burned out, and he affirmed the idea.
“Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, he’s probably one of the unique ones,” Postecoglu responded.
“I mean, he’s an outstanding manager, world class and he will go down as one of the best but when you do it at one club for that long, that’s the uniqueness of it. You know, you kind of have to rebuild teams all the time within the same context.
“Look (it’s) totally understandable, my only wish is that he does stay out of the game for a little while. For a couple of reasons.
“The obvious ones about the competitiveness, but also gives me a bit of hope than when I call the day I’m not going to get the itch to come back too quickly.”
Real bummer of a result for Tottenham today, but you just knew, at some point, that the Manchester City of Pep Guardiola were going to get an away win at Spurs.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He’s written for numerous publications, including the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. He regularly appears on NTD News and WGN News Now, while writing for the International Baseball Writers Association of America. You can follow the website on Twitter