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Ex-Player Watch Player Watch: Mousa Dembele

TottenhamMattSpur

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
10,925
16,007
His decline is sad to watch. I hope he can get back to the form he showed at the start of his Spurs career with Sandro, but it looks like we're drifting further and further away from that.
He's hardly played alongside Sandro since those early days.
 

LukeBB

Well-Known Member
Aug 4, 2013
488
1,793
I'm a fan of Dembele, 2012/2013 our midfield was near hopeless without him, though tbf we had to fall back on Huddlestone and an ageing Parker to perform a similar role. He easily has the ability to dominate games as we saw against Man Utd but I feel like he has not been allowed to express himself with us whether that be because of injury or system idk. Before his injury he was one half of one of the most solid midfields in Europe alongside Sandro pre-injury and his role was that of cover for Sandro or take the ball and shift it to Bale, in someways a more advanced Parker role when he would just receive the ball and relay it back to Modric in 2011/2012. I think he can be vital for us again but if he has to miss the first few days of training every week than that needs to be sorted out as quickly as possible, otherwise his fitness suffers and he has less time to prepare or understand the weekends opponents. If he is missing half the week of training this means he is missing out on tons of information on how to get the better of or unlock the opponents which would explain his dithering on the ball and seeming lack of tactical awareness. This past season he has really struggled with his hip and being asked to unlock a team when we've allowed them to step back and take their defensive shape. His left foot is a cannon which needs provoking by the right coach, whether Poch will help him with this is hard to tell but our first priority with Dembele is to give him enough time and attention to sort out any injury issues he has, being regularly selected for us and Belgium over the past two seasons will only have aggregated the injury so it may be awhile before Dembele is back to full fitness.
 

Geyzer Soze

Fearlessly the idiot faced the crowd
Aug 16, 2010
26,056
63,361
His decline is sad to watch. I hope he can get back to the form he showed at the start of his Spurs career with Sandro, but it looks like we're drifting further and further away from that.
Yeah, i remember that game. :rolleyes:
 

chinaman

Well-Known Member
Jul 19, 2003
17,974
12,423
He's been injury plagued. His hip has been off for the last year or so and considering that he excels at cutting/lateral movements, having that part of his body injured has not helped his performances. If he can get that sorted he can still play a big part for us.


If he has been carrying an injury, it makes all the more sense for him to get rid of the ball early to a teammate instead of dribbling from sideline to sideline and riding more physical contact. I have been saying for over 18 months that he looks elegant on the ball and achieves nothing. I was maybe one of the first few to say that when most on here were still swooning over him and I must have got something like 50 negs or even more for my views on him.
 

dontcallme

SC Supporter
Mar 18, 2005
33,987
81,919
I think this is one of the problems we have.

A player joins, plays really well and is wanted by some big clubs and we love him. He has a bad 6 months and suddenly his weaknesses are all we see.

First of all he needs to get over the injury. Unfair to judge him when struggling.

Then we need to see what atmosphere he thrived in. The answer is his partnership with Sandro gave us one of the strongest centre midfields in the Prem. The bonus was we have Bale ahead of them to run around half the opposition now we don't have that.

Without a player with Bale's ability to take players on a create space we need to pass and move better as a team. This is a weakness of Dembele's game.

Can Poch get Dembele to play a deep role and coach him to pass more intelligently? He's good at taking players on, maybe he needs to play a more advanced role and take player's on in an area on the pitch that can cause some damage.

I'm not sure he'll make it at Spurs now. I think we need to develop a better pass and move game and if we are to have a midfielder playing that is not so comfortable on the ball I'd rather a destroyer like Sandro than Dembele.

But lets not kid ourselves. If we sell Dembele we are selling a good player who can do well for another club.
 

Yid-ol

Just-outside Edinburgh
Jan 16, 2006
31,097
19,276
I think this is one of the problems we have.

A player joins, plays really well and is wanted by some big clubs and we love him. He has a bad 6 months and suddenly his weaknesses are all we see.

First of all he needs to get over the injury. Unfair to judge him when struggling.

Then we need to see what atmosphere he thrived in. The answer is his partnership with Sandro gave us one of the strongest centre midfields in the Prem. The bonus was we have Bale ahead of them to run around half the opposition now we don't have that.

Without a player with Bale's ability to take players on a create space we need to pass and move better as a team. This is a weakness of Dembele's game.

Can Poch get Dembele to play a deep role and coach him to pass more intelligently? He's good at taking players on, maybe he needs to play a more advanced role and take player's on in an area on the pitch that can cause some damage.

I'm not sure he'll make it at Spurs now. I think we need to develop a better pass and move game and if we are to have a midfielder playing that is not so comfortable on the ball I'd rather a destroyer like Sandro than Dembele.

But lets not kid ourselves. If we sell Dembele we are selling a good player who can do well for another club.

Was about to post something like this, but you did it first and better. Totally agree!!
 

double0

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2006
14,423
12,258
Dembele is to me underrated and has been playing with an injury. The partnership between Dembele and Sandro when fit in a two man midfield is powerful enough to dominate games but both are never fit enough.

imo Dembele is our best all round midfielder. I prefer him playing deep, as to my mind he is a very combative and strong player.
 

Bobbins

SC's 14th Sexiest Male 2008
May 5, 2005
21,548
45,031
Why does it so often seem to be us as a club which is regularly playing players who are 'carrying an injury'?

Do we not refer players for surgery or complete recovery time properly?

Do we put pressure on the manager to play these players?

Do the players insist they're ok to play and we fail to overrule them?

Do other clubs do it as well and we just don't see it?

Why are we playing players when they're injured? To me you're either injured or you're fit - and carrying an injury is injured, even if you're ok to run around a bit. What's the point in playing players who are 75% fit but have a niggling problem? Unless you're Bale and its an absolutely vital game I can't see the reasoning behind it.

I don't remember the last time I saw a player at another club who is described as playing with persistent injury, yet we have several on the go at any one time it seems.

Can anyone explain it? It can't just be bad luck.
 

fatpiranha

dismember
Jun 9, 2003
8,337
21,678
I'd like to see what he can do when he's injury free. Overall he is yet to convince but the potential is there. I'm not averse to selling him but not if it means keeping Paulinho.
 

stevenqoz

Well-Known Member
Apr 10, 2006
2,776
553
Hopefully we can get this player 'who beats opponents for fun' to play further forward...I'd actually play him wide left
 

Led's Zeppelin

Can't Re Member
May 28, 2013
7,333
20,178
I think that when fully fit he's a very good player indeed, but still may not be the type of quick-thinking accurate and incisive passing midfielder we need. But getting the best out of players who have both strengths and weaknesses (as they all do) is a manager's job. I'd give it another season.
 

crokey

Well-Known Member
Sep 1, 2012
2,433
7,467
He is one of the most talented outfield players in our squad, along with maybe Eriksen and Lamela. I can imagine he's absolutely unbelievable in training every day, just needs to be a bit more direct on matchdays

Would keep him 100% and I see him starting vast majority of games under Poch
 

the shelf

Well-Known Member
Jan 8, 2009
584
512
A player who seems to have all the ability in the world but absolutely no drive or determination to make the most of it.

Happy to drift through games taking the simple option - he used to be a striker FFS! Now all he does is pass three yards sideways. What a waste, but maybe, just maybe, Pocchetino can sort his head out.
 

spursfan77

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2005
46,680
104,957
I'm trying to work out who should go first. Dembele or Paulinho. It's a tricky one.
 

Mullers

Unknown member
Jan 4, 2006
25,914
16,413
As far as I am concerned if he plays he gets judged. How is it when he plays well there isn't a problem with people judging him but when he plays poorly he shouldn't be judged?
The dude is going into his third season with us now with this hip injury if it is hampering him that much he should have had the surgery a while back. He could have had surgery at the end of last season, he would have missed the world cup but that's too bad.

Club football is the bread and butter and that should come first not international football.
 

looklikemodric

Well-Known Member
Jun 9, 2013
187
2,130
His hip injury is a massive issue how can you give 100% effort if you are not 100%fit?

He never put surgery off for us,he put it off because he did not want it. To be fair I would not want hip surgery so young with no guarantees it would work either it was not meant to sound like a dig.

Putting aside the injury I feel sorry for him as he is a converted forward. He has only been a midfielder for a few years now and people seem to think he is an attacking one yet he is a defensive minded central midfielder and dembele has stated this several times previously. I think the confusion over his best position does not help when people form the opinion of his form so to speak.
 

dondo

Well-Known Member
Jan 4, 2006
8,603
14,091
It's not an operation that will give a 100% recovery he would probably be less mobile after it than he is now. Sadly I fear its an injury he must learn to manage and an injury that could hinder him for the rest of his career
 
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