Tottenham bounced back to knock off West Ham less than 48 hours after losing to Manchester City. The win told us an awful lot about Spurs.
Mauricio Pochettino could barely hide his satisfaction after Tottenham’s 3-1 victory at West Ham on Wednesday night. Despite being forced to make 10 changes to his starting XI against Manchester City, Spurs managed to grind out a solid 3-1 victory in the London Derby.
Obviously Pochettino and his staff learned a lot about the players who did see the pitch in the Carabao Cup matchup. It certainly wasn’t Spurs’ best XI, but the group got the job done. As you might expect, several players really made a case for more Premier League playing time.
In this piece, we’ll walk you through the five most important things Pochettino and company should take from the 3-1 win. We’ll start with an important observation about an emerging midfield star.
5. Harry Winks must start
If you’re a regular reader of my work, you know I’ve been slow to join the Winks hype train. My days of doubting the young midfielder are gone. He was excellent off the bench against West Ham and he was arguably Tottenham’s top midfielder in this match as well.
It’s fair to criticize him for struggling to assert his physicality in the middle of the pitch, but he gives the squad too much attacking verve to stay on the bench. It’s clear that Pochettino needs a player in the double-pivot who can really move the ball around the field. Winks is the only player on the current roster who can handle those duties.
As long as he can maintain good fitness, he should be in the starting XI in the Premier League every week. That means either Mousa Dembele or Eric Dier will need to start coming off the bench. That’s perfectly fine. Winks is outplaying them both by a wide margin at the moment.