Tottenham player ratings at Rochdale: Nightmares for Toby and Winks

Lucas Moura-8

There can be no reasonable argument about who was Tottenham’s man of the match in this one. Lucas Moura was a constant bright spot in what was a very dull Tottenham effort.

He gets the quality rating for his constant willingness to run and take defenders on. Lucas didn’t always slice through to create a quality chance, but he required Rochdale’s full attention. That allowed his attacking teammates to get some much-needed space. It wasn’t his fault they didn’t do anything worthwhile with it.

Of course, the real highlight of his match was his splendid goal to bring Spurs back level. He created the attack with his hard charging run and beat the Rochdale keeper with a really smart finish. Lucas certainly didn’t look like a player who’d played so little football this season. Look for him to gain more and more playing time for Spurs moving forward.

Moussa Sissoko-7

I’m sure quite a few Tottenham fans are slating Sissoko on social media as we speak, but he put in a solid shift. Don’t forget that he provided Lucas the assist that opened Tottenham’s scoring.

More importantly, he ran his socks off for the team. He’ll never be the £30 million player Spurs fans want him to be, but you can’t fault his effort level. Just watch the match over and you’ll see a midfielder in constant motion. If every Tottenham teammate played as hard as Sissoko did in this match, there wouldn’t be a replay against Rochdale.

Heung-Min Son-4

Son probably feels hard done to have been left out of the starting XI at Juventus, but he didn’t do anything to make Pochettino rethink his choice in this match. The talented Korean tried to make his imprint on the match, but it simply wasn’t his day.

In truth, Pochettino probably left him out on the pitch too long. You can’t fault Son’s effort, but he gave the ball away time and time again with his poor touches. 60 minutes would have been plenty of time, but Son somehow survived the full 90.