3 Tottenham Hotspur Players Who Must Hit Form After International Break
There are some football fans who dislike international breaks disrupting the club season. Those among them who are Tottenham Hotspur supporters better have savoured the one just completed.
Things are set to get intense for them and their team with—depending on how things go—little let-up from here until mid-May.
Seven matches remain of a Premier League title challenge that requires overhauling seemingly unflappable leaders Leicester City and holding off possible late assaults from Arsenal and Manchester City.
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A successful tilt is going to require a close-to-flawless collective effort from Mauricio Pochettino's squad. Yet within that there are certain players who, by hitting form after the international weekend, can set a tone that will make their team-mates' lives at least a little easier.
The following three individuals are representative of different aspects of this. We begin with one of Tottenham's longest-serving players.
Tottenham return from the international break with one of the toughest (on paper anyway) of their remaining fixtures: Liverpool away.
The Reds are 17 points behind Spurs in ninth place, but in recent wins over Manchester City and Manchester United, they have given hints of the irresistible force they intend to become under Jurgen Klopp.
Against Spurs, they will attempt to prove the loss to Southampton last time out was merely a blip on their scheduled progress.
The north Londoners' history at Anfield, both bygone and recent, has not been particularly pleasant—between the 73-year wait for a win there that was ended by Garth Crooks' strike in 1985, right through to the current three-game losing streak they are currently on in visits to the Merseyside ground.
The latter is something Kyle Walker is familiar with.
The right-back was part of a disconnected defence that failed to back up their side's commendable attacking efforts last season, conceding a late goal by Mario Balotelli to lose 3-2.
Two years earlier, Walker was culpable in a loss by the same scoreline. His woeful back-pass catching out Hugo Lloris and allowing Stewart Downing to equalise on the way to Liverpool's comeback win.
Walker returns to Anfield a more mature player than in 2013 and part of a defence that has improved—and changed—considerably from a year ago.
The Spurs defence is still the best in the Premier League this season, conceding just 24 times (by comparison Leicester have let in 31, Arsenal 30). Walker has appeared in 26 league matches, re-establishing his first-choice status in recent weeks after Pochettino's rotation between him and Kieran Trippier throughout the winter.
That time out of the starting XI was more to do with keeping players fresh and strategical thinking (for instance, twice utilising Trippier's better crossing ability to stretch and trouble Watford) than it was a reflection of concerns with Walker. Indeed, the 25-year-old is arguably in the best form of his career.
His positional awareness in both defending his flank and backing up Toby Alderweireld inside has improved considerably. The better concentration in these situations has informed sharper choices overall and a decrease in mistakes.
Walker has settled into a supporting groove offensively, too. He set up Harry Kane's opener in the 3-0 win over Bournemouth and kept his cool to tee up Jamie Vardy's goal in England's defeat against the Netherlands.
It was probably no coincidence he and Spurs team-mate Danny Rose were the national's team's most assured defensive performers in the recent break (the latter's unfortunate penalty-conceding handball against the Dutch aside).
Compared to the erratic and unconvincing likes of centre-backs Gary Cahill and John Stones, they looked prepared for the basic demands of their work and adaptable to wrinkles offered by their opponents.
Tottenham will need the rest of the defence to continue performing as well as they have if they are to survive and thrive in the upcoming run-in. However, Walker doing so will make for a particularly apt marker.
Beginning with the test of Liverpool, maintaining the level he has reached thus far this season can show Spurs really are worthy of their title-contending status—that the improvement he and his team have made has been legitimate.
Erik Lamela
Up until now Erik Lamela's season has arguably been defined by two performances. Both of them in wins against Manchester City.
Back in September, he was part of an excellent team comeback from a goal down. Lamela took the fight to Manuel Pellegrini's side as well as anyone and earned the reward of scoring Tottenham's final goal in a 4-1 victory that hinted at what they may be capable of.
In February's return match, he arrived as an 81st-minute substitute with the balance of the game appearing to shift in City's favour after Kelechi Iheanacho cancelled out Kane's opener. His composed, elegant assist for Christian Eriksen's winner was all the more eye-pleasing for its temerity in such a big game.
There has been plenty of good from Lamela in between and since then, but those displays showed the Argentinian at his best—a blend of aggressiveness and style that embodies the progression of Pochettino's Tottenham.
It is possible the north London club could get by without Lamela in the coming weeks. With the myriad attacking talent in their squad, they have players who can win the points they need.
But given how tense things are likely to get even if things go to plan (a consequence of Leicester's current five-point lead and the nerve-racking nature of a title chase), you suspect Spurs are going to need someone with more maverick tendencies like Lamela.
Someone who can find rhythm even when those around him perform tunelessly. Who can belie characterisation as just a creative-type and put his foot in, showing an opponent they cannot boss Spurs around.
Those City games showed Tottenham can rely on Lamela to deliver when they need it most. If they are going to go all the way and win the Premier League this season, he will almost certainly have done so a few more times.
Harry Kane
It is a sign of this Tottenham team's strength that the players this writer is arguing need to hit form post-international break are not coming from places of struggle. Rather, they embody qualities the group have shown throughout 2015-16 and will need to maintain heading into May.
If Walker exemplifies the gradual development underpinning Spurs, and Lamela the spark that can ignite it into something more, Harry Kane is a combination of both. The vital energy source at its core around which everything else connects.
Others have been central to Spurs' great year, too.
Lloris and Alderweireld offer consistency at the back. In midfield Dele Alli, Mousa Dembele and Eric Dier have engineered and sustained what is so good about them on both sides of the ball.
But with the goals and the dedication he brings to every part of his game, Kane is the one it is hard to see them living without. Especially now when the pressure of their situation is—if they keep up the chase—going to envelop them in a way that will either inspire or kill their effort.
The class of Kane has again been on display with England—notably in his brilliant goal in the win over Germany. If Tottenham are going to win the title, get set to see a whole lot more from the 22-year-old.
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