Nabil Bentaleb and Ryan Mason Face Big Fight to Regain Tottenham Starting Spots

Tottenham Hotspur host an event this week exploring the path between youth football to the first team, particularly those trod by former player Micky Hazard and current-Spur Ryan Mason.

Hazard comes from the last genuine crop of youth-team talent to emerge at the club prior to the current generation Mason is part of. He and the likes of Mark Falco, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Hughton and Paul Miller helped Tottenham to two FA Cups and the UEFA Cup back in the early 1980s. As acknowledged recently, Hazard also brought Mason to Spurs’ attention back in 1997—per the club’s official website.

David Cannon/Getty Images

The event’s title of "Grassroots to Glory" is still apt by almost any measure of professional footballing achievement (certainly in Hazard’s trophy-winning case). Yet in the midst of the kind of reality check the sport is prone to throwing up, Mason could be forgiven for feeling genuine glory of his own is a little way off.

In a season already previously disrupted by them, injuries have again consigned the 24-year-old to the sidelines. Nabil Bentaleb, his central-midfield partner last season, will share similar feelings of frustration right now. Another academy-honed player who has seen fitness issues conspire with others’ form to erode well-earned prominence.

Bentaleb has featured since Mason’s last appearance (off the bench against Chelsea in November), but he has experienced an even more demoralising time overall.

Where his team-mate got the boost of scoring the goal that secured Spurs’ first win of the season against Sunderland, there have been no such highlights for him. Nor has there been the opportunity to rectify the rusty, below-par performances that began the campaign and engineer the kind of improvement he deemed so integral to pushing on after agreeing a new contract—via the north Londoners' official website.

Bryn Lennon/Getty Images

Bentaleb’s initial recovery efforts were hurt by an exacerbation to his ankle injury on international duty in November. Since recovering from that, the Algerian has played twice. Eager but naturally off the pace at home to Monaco in December, he did not appear again until an unremarkable cameo in the FA Cup third round against Leicester City.

Mason is unavailable for Wednesday’s replay vs. the Foxes through his own current ankle knock. But neither he nor Bentaleb would be guaranteed minutes right now as head coach Mauricio Pochettino proceeds with an approach that essentially comes down to this: what have you done for me lately?

It is not a callous, sweeping disregard for anyone to have suffered injury. Prior to recent problems, Mason’s early-season form ensured he was his boss’ go-to back-up midfielder throughout November. However, Pochettino has made it clear recent form and efforts will be prioritised over past notions of status (the obvious exception being enforced alterations).

Benefiting here are season standouts Dele Alli and Eric Dier, plus the revitalised Mousa Dembele and improving Tom Carroll (accommodating the latter two as substitutes in the last two games led to Bentaleb not even making the bench). Suffering are the two midfielders who helped generate such crucial momentum in Pochettino’s first year, then worked themselves silly to sustain it.

Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

The ambitious Bentaleb may begrudgingly concede admiration for his coach’s prioritising clinical results over sentiment. "You have to improve all the time and if you don’t, I consider that a failure," his aforementioned pledge of improvement went. "That is what has brought me to where I am now."

You can imagine Pochettino applying a similar mantra to his team. He will now be asking Bentaleb and Mason to get over any frustration and prove themselves again—to show what they can do to help the fourth-placed Premier League side get better.

The versatile Englishman will bank on his drive and determination being required again down the line. The kind of timely grit that informed his sumptuous equaliser in his breakthrough appearance against Nottingham Forest last season, or the vision and execution that created and delivered the decisive move at Sunderland.

Bentaleb’s athleticism and often subtle stylistic manoeuvres helped guide and positively provoke Tottenham in some memorable 2014-15 victories—home wins over Chelsea and Arsenal the most notable examples. However, from Alli’s scoring instincts to Dembele’s beguiling-yet-robust ball-management, the quality level for midfield contributions has been raised considerably in the 21-year-old’s absence.

BEN STANSALL/Getty Images

Both Bentaleb and Mason have previously spoken well about not resting on their laurels and of understanding the competitiveness Pochettino has instilled at Tottenham

"Everyone is on their toes, improving each other, the players who aren’t playing are training hard and driving on the players who are playing," Mason said in late-October. Meanwhile, Bentaleb noted in December, "I’ve improved a lot since the first time I stepped out on the pitch but I still have lots of ways in which I can improve more" (both via Spurs’ official website).

Now each must live up to the spirit of those words if they are to regain the starting sports they did so well to initially claim. As the demands of the season takes its toll on the team, at least one of them will almost certainly be needed.

Follow @Thomas__Cooper