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Martin Keown says £34m Tottenham player is missing something key from his game
Tottenham endured one of their most embarrassing defeats in some time under Ange Postecolgou with Spurs losing 3-2 to Brighton & Hove Albion after leading 2-0.
A second-half comeback from the Seagulls saw Tottenham become the first Premier League club ever to lose ten league games having gone 2-0 up at the break, with Brighton completing a remarka🧸ble comeback at the Amex Stadium.
With Gﷺary Lineker saying Tottenham missed Heung-min Son in the attack, the𒉰 north London side will want to get over this result as quickly as possible when the P♏remier League returns, with a derby against West Ham next up.
Yet Martin Keown made a critical point about one Tottenham player after what he saw against Bri꧋ghton.
Micky van de Ven lacking ‘toughness’ to play in Tottenham’s defence
Speaking on , the former Arsenal defender noted how Micky van de Ven looked like he was lacking ‘toughness’🥀 to really stop Brighton’s attackers on Sunday, ♕who found it easy to take on the Dutch international.
Signed for £34m last summer, Van de Ven has been a great signing fro Tottenham with the foꦆrmer VfL Wolfsburg star forming a fantastic centre-back partnership alongside Cristian Romero under Postecolgou.
However, Van de Ven’s performance on the English south coast was disappointing, to say the least, and Keown believes the 23-year-old defender didn’t put his strength to good use despite his ob💟vious physical abilities.
Keown🥃 said about the Tottenham defender: “Van de Ven is g♌etting all this credit for being a speed merchant, flying forward, but I didn’t really see a toughness about him in that second half. Mintah, I think, went past him a few times.”
Van de Ven needs to adjust to the physicality of the Premier League
As Keown noted, Van de Ven is regarded as one of the fastest players in the Premier League, with the defender using his pace last week to terrorise Manchester United in Tottenham’s 3-0 win at Old Trafford.
Yet which it comes to physicality, Van de Ven has some way to go despite the towering Dutch defender h🐈aving the stature and the strength to become a real menace for Premier League attackers if he used his abilities to their full potenti🍬al.
After a year in England, Van de🉐 Ven should have cracked this code by now, yet it is clear that the young centre-back needs more time to adjust to the physicality of the Premier League, with Brighton making the former Bundesliga man look silly in some moves.