He'd walk into Ipswich's team: Ange must axe Bergvall to unleash Spurs star

Tottenham Hotspur came into this season hopeful of doing one better than last year and getting into the Champions League.

Instead, Ange Postecoglou has had to deal with a seemingly never-ending stream of injuries to key players in his squad, which has seen the team crash out of both domestic cups and languish in 12th place in the Premier League.

That said, there have been some positive developments over the last week or so, as some players have started to return, and the team beat Manchester United for the third time this season last weekend.

However, this afternoon’s game away to Ipswich poses another challenge for the Lilywhites to get over, and to ensure they do, Postecoglou should look to unleash his best player in his best position, although that would mean dropping Lucas Bergvall.

Spurs’ last game vs Ipswich

On top of winning for the sake of climbing back up the Premier League table, Postecoglou’s side will have the added incentive of getting revenge for the reverse fixture.

When Ipswich travelled to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in November earlier this season, they had yet to win a game in the league, but unfortunately for the hosts, that was no longer the case at full-time.

It was Sammie Szmodics who opened the scoring with a simply sensational bicycle kick that nestled in the bottom right corner, and then a mix-up between Guglielmo Vicario and Radu Dragusin allowed Liam Delap to simply tap in the second.

Dominic Solanke thought he pulled one back in the second half but saw it ruled out for offside, and while Rodrigo Bentancur was able to finally pull one back, it ultimately led to nothing.

Worse still, while the North Londoners had 66% of the ball, the game itself was fairly even, as they amassed an expected goals figure of 1.55 to the Blues’ 1.66 and took five shots on target to their three.

So, it would be fair to say that revenge is on the menu this afternoon and to ensure they get it, the manager has to unleash one of his best players who’d walk into the Ipswich team, even though that means dropping Bergvall.

The Spurs star who’d walk into Ipswich’s team

As you’d expect for a team the size of Spurs, there are quite a few players who, when on form, would easily walk into McKenna’s starting lineup.

However, in this instance, we are talking about arguably the North Londoners’ best player this season: Dejan Kulusevski.

The Swedish international started off the right against United, and while he did okay there and has spent much of his Tottenham career as a winger, he’s been at his very best in midfield this year.

For example, of the 19 goal involvements he’s produced in 40 appearances this season, 11 of them have come in the 20 games he’s played in either attacking or central midfield, coming out to an average of a goal involvement every 1.81 games.

Therefore, to get the most out of him, he should drop back into the middle of the park, and with James Maddison scoring the winner last week and Bentancur anchoring the midfield, it’s got to be Bergvall who drops out this time.

Now, in terms of walking into the visitors’ first team, the only real competition he’d have from an attacking sense would be Szmodics and Omari Hutchinson, and considering the former has a total of five goal involvements this season and the latter a total of four, it’s a competition the “world-class” Swede, as dubbed by talent scout Jacek Kulig, would win handily.

Ultimately, Spurs need to keep the positive momentum going this afternoon by getting revenge for the reverse fixture and one of the ways Postecoglou can make that a whole lot more likely is by unleashing Kulusevski in midfield.

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