When we bought him, I think a lot of us including moi hoped he'd be the new Eriksen. Decent but nowhere near that quality. Makes me realise what a treasure we had in CE.
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Pretty sure you laughed at me for suggesting this?
Sth like Do woolwich have competition for Odourguard?
Do the dipper have competition for Szoboshite?
But I have thought for a while we need a legit option that keeps him on his toes and plays when he’s injured
I laugh at you every day so it's certainly possible mate.
And apparently for things you end up agreeing with later
This was part of a larger piece on him in the Athletic.
The numbers behind James Maddison's post-injury downturnThe numbers behind Tottenham midfielder James Maddison’s post-injury downturn
The two north London derbies this season offer a neat encapsulation of the two halves of James Maddison’s first year at Tottenham Hotspur.
Back in September, Maddison was absolutely the man. It wasn’t just the two assists he provided to help secure a 2-2 draw, it was the swagger he played with and how he spoke and carried himself after the game. “I got told he did the dart celebration and he must have still been doing it when I turned him for the first goal,” Maddison said of his England team-mate Bukayo Saka. He added with a smile: “I’ll have a little word with him in there.”
As well as his sense of humour, Maddison showed his defiant side, adding in an interview with talkSPORT that: “I think winning late last week (against Sheffield United) and coming back twice (against Woolwich), when you hear fans and neutrals talk about Tottenham they often say, ‘Soft, weak, they’ll bottle it, Spursy’, all that rubbish. I think the last couple of weeks show that we might be going in a slightly different direction.”
On that day, the Emirates was Maddison’s Toby Carvery.
He was in a great run of form at that point and his start to life at Spurs felt like a non-stop sugar rush. Three goals and five assists in his first 10 games, Tottenham top of the league. Life was good.
Sunday’s north London derby was an altogether different affair for Maddison. He didn’t play badly as such, almost setting up a first-half equaliser for Cristian Romerowith an excellent free kick, but he was largely peripheral and came off after 64 minutes with Spurs trailing 3-0. In September, it would have been impossible to imagine Maddison being substituted in such circumstances, injury aside.
It was the ninth game in a row in which Maddison was taken off, with Spurs needing a goal in the majority of those. Having started the season so brightly, he’s without a goal or an assist in his last six games.
Could playing Chelsea on Thursday prove redemptive? It was in the reverse fixture in November when Maddison suffered the ankle injury that forced him out for almost three months and abruptly ended that early-season momentum. Before he had to go off just before time, Maddison helped create Dejan Kulusevski’s opener by dropping deep into his own half where you might expect to find a left-back and playing a beautifully swept pass infield. That kind of freedom and invention currently feels a long way off.
Why, then, has Maddison’s productivity dropped off since he returned from injury? And if we look at the numbers behind the headline figures, has the downturn been as stark as it seems?
Starting with those headline figures, Maddison registered three goals and five assists in his first 11 Premier League games prior to injury. He has one goal and two assists in the 12 since. He almost has as many bookings (two) as goal contributions in that time — and he was lucky to escape punishment for lashing out at Ryan Yates in the win over Nottingham Forest a few weeks ago. It’s been a frustrating period.
Looking at the numbers in a bit more depth in the graphic below, we can see his output has definitely gone down.
One of the most interesting metrics here is sequence involvements leading to shots, which is a passage of play that belongs to one team and is ended by a defensive action, a stoppage in play or a shot. Maddison’s figure has dropped from 9.0 per game (behind only Rodri in the Premier League in this period) to 6.6, the 28th best in the time since he returned from injury. Still a good number, but it illustrates that he is not as consistently involved as he was before when it felt like every Spurs attack went through him.
One area of encouragement is that his expected assists aren’t especially down (0.3 to 0.2), which suggests he’s still getting the ball into decent areas for his team-mates.
Everywhere else though, there has been a marked drop-off. What’s behind it?
The first thing to say is that this has been a bit of a recurring theme for Maddison in the past few years — starting seasons well and then tailing off. Last season in particular there are plenty of parallels with what’s happened this time around.
Back then, Maddison began the season brilliantly. He scored seven times and provided four assists in his first 13 Premier League games (at a rate of 0.9 non-penalty goal contributions per 90 minutes), before being struck down by a knee injury away at West Ham in November 2022. Maddison went to the World Cup with England carrying that injury and after missing four games because of it on his return, never hit the same heights. He scored three (one a penalty) and assisted five in his subsequent 17 games as Leicester were relegated (at a rate of 0.45 non-penalty goal contributions per 90 minutes). Still good but half what he was averaging in that outstanding first part of the campaign.
The previous season (2021-22), Maddison tailed off after an initial burst but then came back from injury to finish the season in style with four goals and three assists in his final four games. Spurs will be hoping Maddison ends up having a similar trajectory this season.
The previous two campaigns, though, conformed more to the pattern of great start followed by an injury-affected less effective finish. Both of these seasons also saw Leicester fall out of the top four having looked certain to qualify for the Champions League and perhaps the lesson there was that they were too reliant on Maddison. Maybe Spurs are, too. In the 2020-21 campaign, Maddison enjoyed a longer period of consistent form — eight goals and five assists in his first 23 Premier League games (at a rate of 0.72 non-penalty goal contributions per 90 minutes). At this point, though, he was struck down by a hip injury and, after returning from that, didn’t register a goal or an assist in his final eight games of the season. This contributed, along with other factors, to Maddison being benched for the FA Cup final win against Chelsea.
In 2019-20 when Leicester similarly fell away in the league, Maddison registered five goals and three assists in his first 15 games (at a rate of 0.54 non-penalty goal contributions per 90). That was followed by one goal and zero assists in his next 16 (0.07 non-penalty goal contributions per 90), before he missed the final six games of the campaign with a hip injury. By the end at Leicester, supporters came to expect a drop-off in the second half of the season.
Does this suggest a durability issue? Could Maddison still be struggling to reach full fitness after that lengthy layoff? There’s no suggestion that he is currently carrying an injury and Tottenham head coach Ange Postecoglou shot down the suggestion after Maddison had been taken off early against West Ham last month. “He’s not carrying a knock,” Postecoglou said. “If he was carrying a knock he wouldn’t be playing. He’s fine, yeah.”
Maddison is scoring and creating less since his injury (Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)
Even if he’s not dealing with a specific injury, one theory is that Maddison is not helped physically by the volume of fouls he receives. Despite missing almost a third of the season through injury, only four players have been fouled more in the Premier League in 2023-24 than Maddison (64). And looking at players with a minimum of 1,000 minutes played this season, only Crystal Palace’s Michael Olise (3.2) and Jordan Ayew (3.33) have been fouled more per 90 minutes than Maddison, who is fouled on average 3.15 times a game. Maddison is clearly targeted by opposition teams, who feel that if you stop him, you choke Spurs’ creativity. Nottingham Forest went as far as tasking Yates with deliberately trying to provoke Maddison into a reaction — which duly came when he aimed a jab into the Forest midfielder’s chest. There’s also a theory that in recent weeks, by the time games do finally open up, a battered and bruised Maddison has already been substituted.
Generally, though, those close to the situation are mystified by Maddison’s downturn in form. One school of thought is that he is trying too hard to make things happen, conscious that he has not been as eye-catchingly effective as he was in the early part of the season. This might especially be the case with the Euros coming up and his place in the England squad being far from secure. It is worth remembering, though, that over the season as a whole, Maddison has contributed a commendable 11 goals and assists in 23 games, at a rate of 0.55 non-penalty goal contributions per 90 minutes.
It’s a tricky balance right now because Maddison is encouraged to try things in Postecoglou’s system, but some feel he might benefit from focusing on doing the simple things for the moment and trusting that it will lead to a general uptick in form. What’s clear is that Maddison is not playing with the “flow” that he enjoyed in his early months at Spurs. In his third game for the club, away at Bournemouth, Maddison scored and was man of the match in a game in which he seemed to glide around the pitch and play on instinct. It was all done within a structure, but Maddison played with an elan that he’s been lacking in the past few months.
On Sunday, meanwhile, it was hard not to draw a comparison between Maddison and his Woolwich counterpart Martin Odegaard. Three years ago, Woolwich pursued a deal for Odegaard over Maddison, who was also well-thought-of at the north London club. Both players are wonderfully creative, but Odegaard possesses a relentless physicality that the Spurs No 10 does not.
The season is far from over. Spurs have five games left to play and if they are to finish strongly, Maddison will surely play a big part. Perhaps that is part of the problem — that Tottenham seem to be as reliant on him as Leicester were. Some would disagree and advocate for one of Kulusevski, Rodrigo Bentancur or Giovani Lo Celso to start in his place to give him a rest. Maybe Postecoglou will agree, but on the 23 previous occasions Maddison has been available for a league game this season, he has started.
The expectation is that he’ll do so against Chelsea on Thursday night. Presenting Maddison with the chance to get back to his best in the fixture that saw his season cruelly knocked off course six months ago
Back in September, Maddison was absolutely the man. It wasn’t just the two assists he provided to help secure a 2-2 draw, it was the swagger he played with and how he spoke and carried himself after the game. “I got told he did the dart celebration and he must have still been doing it when I turned him for the first goal,” Maddison said of his England team-mate Bukayo Saka. He added with a smile: “I’ll have a little word with him in there.”
As well as his sense of humour, Maddison showed his defiant side, adding in an interview with talkSPORT that: “I think winning late last week (against Sheffield United) and coming back twice (against Woolwich), when you hear fans and neutrals talk about Tottenham they often say, ‘Soft, weak, they’ll bottle it, Spursy’, all that rubbish. I think the last couple of weeks show that we might be going in a slightly different direction.”
On that day, the Emirates was Maddison’s Toby Carvery.
He was in a great run of form at that point and his start to life at Spurs felt like a non-stop sugar rush. Three goals and five assists in his first 10 games, Tottenham top of the league. Life was good.
Sunday’s north London derby was an altogether different affair for Maddison. He didn’t play badly as such, almost setting up a first-half equaliser for Cristian Romerowith an excellent free kick, but he was largely peripheral and came off after 64 minutes with Spurs trailing 3-0. In September, it would have been impossible to imagine Maddison being substituted in such circumstances, injury aside.
It was the ninth game in a row in which Maddison was taken off, with Spurs needing a goal in the majority of those. Having started the season so brightly, he’s without a goal or an assist in his last six games.
Could playing Chelsea on Thursday prove redemptive? It was in the reverse fixture in November when Maddison suffered the ankle injury that forced him out for almost three months and abruptly ended that early-season momentum. Before he had to go off just before time, Maddison helped create Dejan Kulusevski’s opener by dropping deep into his own half where you might expect to find a left-back and playing a beautifully swept pass infield. That kind of freedom and invention currently feels a long way off.
Why, then, has Maddison’s productivity dropped off since he returned from injury? And if we look at the numbers behind the headline figures, has the downturn been as stark as it seems?
Starting with those headline figures, Maddison registered three goals and five assists in his first 11 Premier League games prior to injury. He has one goal and two assists in the 12 since. He almost has as many bookings (two) as goal contributions in that time — and he was lucky to escape punishment for lashing out at Ryan Yates in the win over Nottingham Forest a few weeks ago. It’s been a frustrating period.
Looking at the numbers in a bit more depth in the graphic below, we can see his output has definitely gone down.
One of the most interesting metrics here is sequence involvements leading to shots, which is a passage of play that belongs to one team and is ended by a defensive action, a stoppage in play or a shot. Maddison’s figure has dropped from 9.0 per game (behind only Rodri in the Premier League in this period) to 6.6, the 28th best in the time since he returned from injury. Still a good number, but it illustrates that he is not as consistently involved as he was before when it felt like every Spurs attack went through him.
One area of encouragement is that his expected assists aren’t especially down (0.3 to 0.2), which suggests he’s still getting the ball into decent areas for his team-mates.
Everywhere else though, there has been a marked drop-off. What’s behind it?
The first thing to say is that this has been a bit of a recurring theme for Maddison in the past few years — starting seasons well and then tailing off. Last season in particular there are plenty of parallels with what’s happened this time around.
Back then, Maddison began the season brilliantly. He scored seven times and provided four assists in his first 13 Premier League games (at a rate of 0.9 non-penalty goal contributions per 90 minutes), before being struck down by a knee injury away at West Ham in November 2022. Maddison went to the World Cup with England carrying that injury and after missing four games because of it on his return, never hit the same heights. He scored three (one a penalty) and assisted five in his subsequent 17 games as Leicester were relegated (at a rate of 0.45 non-penalty goal contributions per 90 minutes). Still good but half what he was averaging in that outstanding first part of the campaign.
The previous season (2021-22), Maddison tailed off after an initial burst but then came back from injury to finish the season in style with four goals and three assists in his final four games. Spurs will be hoping Maddison ends up having a similar trajectory this season.
The previous two campaigns, though, conformed more to the pattern of great start followed by an injury-affected less effective finish. Both of these seasons also saw Leicester fall out of the top four having looked certain to qualify for the Champions League and perhaps the lesson there was that they were too reliant on Maddison. Maybe Spurs are, too. In the 2020-21 campaign, Maddison enjoyed a longer period of consistent form — eight goals and five assists in his first 23 Premier League games (at a rate of 0.72 non-penalty goal contributions per 90 minutes). At this point, though, he was struck down by a hip injury and, after returning from that, didn’t register a goal or an assist in his final eight games of the season. This contributed, along with other factors, to Maddison being benched for the FA Cup final win against Chelsea.
In 2019-20 when Leicester similarly fell away in the league, Maddison registered five goals and three assists in his first 15 games (at a rate of 0.54 non-penalty goal contributions per 90). That was followed by one goal and zero assists in his next 16 (0.07 non-penalty goal contributions per 90), before he missed the final six games of the campaign with a hip injury. By the end at Leicester, supporters came to expect a drop-off in the second half of the season.
Does this suggest a durability issue? Could Maddison still be struggling to reach full fitness after that lengthy layoff? There’s no suggestion that he is currently carrying an injury and Tottenham head coach Ange Postecoglou shot down the suggestion after Maddison had been taken off early against West Ham last month. “He’s not carrying a knock,” Postecoglou said. “If he was carrying a knock he wouldn’t be playing. He’s fine, yeah.”
Maddison is scoring and creating less since his injury (Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)
Even if he’s not dealing with a specific injury, one theory is that Maddison is not helped physically by the volume of fouls he receives. Despite missing almost a third of the season through injury, only four players have been fouled more in the Premier League in 2023-24 than Maddison (64). And looking at players with a minimum of 1,000 minutes played this season, only Crystal Palace’s Michael Olise (3.2) and Jordan Ayew (3.33) have been fouled more per 90 minutes than Maddison, who is fouled on average 3.15 times a game. Maddison is clearly targeted by opposition teams, who feel that if you stop him, you choke Spurs’ creativity. Nottingham Forest went as far as tasking Yates with deliberately trying to provoke Maddison into a reaction — which duly came when he aimed a jab into the Forest midfielder’s chest. There’s also a theory that in recent weeks, by the time games do finally open up, a battered and bruised Maddison has already been substituted.
Generally, though, those close to the situation are mystified by Maddison’s downturn in form. One school of thought is that he is trying too hard to make things happen, conscious that he has not been as eye-catchingly effective as he was in the early part of the season. This might especially be the case with the Euros coming up and his place in the England squad being far from secure. It is worth remembering, though, that over the season as a whole, Maddison has contributed a commendable 11 goals and assists in 23 games, at a rate of 0.55 non-penalty goal contributions per 90 minutes.
It’s a tricky balance right now because Maddison is encouraged to try things in Postecoglou’s system, but some feel he might benefit from focusing on doing the simple things for the moment and trusting that it will lead to a general uptick in form. What’s clear is that Maddison is not playing with the “flow” that he enjoyed in his early months at Spurs. In his third game for the club, away at Bournemouth, Maddison scored and was man of the match in a game in which he seemed to glide around the pitch and play on instinct. It was all done within a structure, but Maddison played with an elan that he’s been lacking in the past few months.
On Sunday, meanwhile, it was hard not to draw a comparison between Maddison and his Woolwich counterpart Martin Odegaard. Three years ago, Woolwich pursued a deal for Odegaard over Maddison, who was also well-thought-of at the north London club. Both players are wonderfully creative, but Odegaard possesses a relentless physicality that the Spurs No 10 does not.
The season is far from over. Spurs have five games left to play and if they are to finish strongly, Maddison will surely play a big part. Perhaps that is part of the problem — that Tottenham seem to be as reliant on him as Leicester were. Some would disagree and advocate for one of Kulusevski, Rodrigo Bentancur or Giovani Lo Celso to start in his place to give him a rest. Maybe Postecoglou will agree, but on the 23 previous occasions Maddison has been available for a league game this season, he has started.
The expectation is that he’ll do so against Chelsea on Thursday night. Presenting Maddison with the chance to get back to his best in the fixture that saw his season cruelly knocked off course six months ago
I think part of the problem is that the tactical dynamics of our games radically altered pre and post his 2/3 month lay off. We had much more freedom in transition before and since have found ourselves playing against deeper blocks and teams working much harder to nullify us.
He’s also our only creative midfield player and none of the forwards drop back and create anything either.
I always thought his talent and vision were a bit overrated and I don’t think Maddison ever really played regularly against deep blocks at Leicester either.
We desperately need another creative 8 to play as well as Maddison so our build up is less predictable - as well as forwards who can contribute better to build up and breaking down buses.
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Needs benching for either Kulu or GLC now and bringing on if they arent doing the business. He's just not at it and I dont think he will be until next season now.
We 100% need competition for him.
We 100% need competition for him.
We can't be all smart as you now can we Richard
Do my best Dan
Would anyone be mad if he didn’t go to the Euros? Southgate probably wouldn’t play him much anyway.
View: https://x.com/jamiecweir/status/1786129778564600099?s=46&t=Zr__ObRcjqxF616P03tagg
View: https://x.com/jamiecweir/status/1786129778564600099?s=46&t=Zr__ObRcjqxF616P03tagg
Shouldn't be anywhere near the team on current form. He will come good again, and he is a very good player. He's not doing anything he didn't do at Leicester every season where he would have quiet spells and then look shit hot for a couple of months.
He doesn’t deserve to.
Eriksen was bad to start with and god awful at the end.
The difference is, he was younger when he came and not much older when he went.
I think its time we make a stand and punish him to make a statement to the players for his recent shit performances. No player is untouchable. His box needs to be moved into the corner of the stadium, WITH restrictive views!!! 
Watching him last night I could see the effort and felt exactly this.
Also felt rage that Chelsea sent 6 players to kick him off the pitch, all targeting the ankle because he'd already picked up a knock on his ankle from being hacked and not one fucking ref did anything to stop it.
I'm still fuming that Saka and Palmer walked off the pitch against us. We let Maddison down by not making both feel some aggression from our team. When are we going to compete like our biggest rival do?
He’s a good player on his day but nothing more than that. He’s inconsistent & always has been. Let’s be honest, when we signed him, who were we competing against for his signature? We did what we always do with most of our players & overhyped him after the first few games of the season thinking that the £40m we paid for him was an absolute bargain
When we get a coach who understands elite football AND back him with elite players with elite mindsets.
I’ve never seen a player fall down as often as he does. Honestly 90% of the time the ball comes to him, he falls over.
It’s like he forgot how to play football.
It’s like he forgot how to play football.
Much much better
Can start again imo
Can start again imo
Newcastle.
He did better today. Maybe his spot is at LW with Richie in the middle, and GLC at CAM.