Why James Maddison Is A Brilliant Signing For Tottenham
James Maddison has completed his transfer to Tottenham Hotspur for a reported £40m and, while no move is ever a sure thing, this is a move that has the potential to massively transform Ange Postecoglu's side.
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00:00 *Intro*
00:02 James Madison has signed for Tottenham Hotspur, there he is playing with his darts
00:07 And if you are a Tottenham Hotspur fan, I am willing to bet cash money that you are already excited about this prospect
00:14 But thing is if that excitement level is it like a five or a six if it's in the sort of like ooh
00:18 What a good bit of business territory. I'm here to tell you that's not enough
00:22 I'm gonna need you to bump that up all the way to like an eight or a nine
00:25 Excitement level because James Madison for Tottenham Hotspur might be the best bit of business of the summer for real for real
00:32 *Ding*
00:34 All right, so before I start full disclosure
00:36 I am a Newcastle United fan and I am NOT one of the ones who's going to pretend like I didn't want him in the
00:40 First place. I am gutted. But the thing is as well as some Newcastle United fans trying to mask their disappointment
00:45 They're also fans of other clubs saying things like yeah, Madison's good, but he's not quite at that top top elite sort of level
00:52 He's not in that bracket. He just gets overhyped because he's English. That's the position you want to take?
00:56 Absolutely fine
00:58 But let's look at some facts
01:00 Shall we? If we look in the Premier League last season at the combined number of goals and assists by players James Madison ranks
01:07 13th. Now that's not an amazing start
01:09 I would argue being in a team that got relegated that was pretty rubbish all season and still coming
01:13 13th is pretty good. Like if you look at the players around him
01:17 They're all playing for like top four top six sides who had good seasons basically and he didn't so that's not
01:22 Bad, but also yeah, it's not amazing
01:25 But if we instead look across the last two seasons combined for both goals and assists all of a sudden he jumps up to six
01:31 And yes
01:32 The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that Harland should also still be in the two-year thing because you've got so many last season it
01:38 Still puts him in the top bracket for two, but he didn't play in that season
01:41 So I'm not gonna count him. You don't you don't need that graph to tell you that early Harland is good
01:46 That's not what we're here for. But alright, alright, maybe it's only two seasons. Maybe that's still not convincing enough for you
01:50 Let's look at three seasons for combined goals and assists and Madison is now fifth. It's Kane, Saka, De Bruyne, Fernandes
01:57 Madison that is an elite bracket. What about the last four seasons?
02:01 He's still fifth behind Kane, Saka, De Bruyne and Fernandes
02:05 That is still like the top top table of goals and assists. If I know let's not stop there. Let's look at five years
02:11 Let's look at the entire time
02:12 He's been at Leicester City since he joined that club
02:15 He is fourth for the combined goals and assists in the Premier League. You cannot not to be impressed by that
02:22 Surely just to put that in black and white for you
02:24 So you can clip it and send it to your idiot friends who still don't rate them since James Madison signed for Leicester City
02:30 only Mo Salah
02:32 Kevin De Bruyne and Harry Kane have contributed more goals and assists in the Premier League
02:37 So let's have a little look at why shall we now Leicester City did a number of different things last year
02:42 But they by and large used this 4-2-3-1 and James Madison was mostly here
02:47 But was also sometimes here and if we look at his heat map across the entire season
02:51 That is exactly what you would expect from a really really good number 10 who's a size creative focal point
02:57 He's got a lot of freedom to go do whatever he wants to get on the ball to make things happen
03:01 Who is trusted by his manager to create and also this is very funny
03:06 You can see there's two big red dots in the corners because he takes most of their corner kicks
03:10 But you can also see there's a big red dot in the center circle because Leicester conceded so many goals last season that him taking the
03:17 Kickoffs actually shows up on the heat map. I shouldn't have you're a Leicester fan
03:21 I'm sorry, I really shouldn't laugh, but I just I just noticed that and thought that's funny in it
03:25 So anyway, yes
03:26 The reason James Madison has this much freedom across the pitch the reason he is so trusted by his managers is because he is excellent
03:31 At getting on the ball. He's excellent at finding pockets of space. He's excellent at recognizing
03:35 Situations developing around him and finding the right position and the right pass to turn that into a chance and he can do that a
03:41 number of different ways like it's passing is excellent over both short and medium distances when he gets it the dangerous areas and you've only
03:47 Got to go 5 10 possibly 15 yards to make something happen
03:50 Fewer better and it's just control and general abilities really really good as well
03:54 So we can beat a player with his first touch
03:56 You can drive past them with pace or with trickery and he gets fouled a lot in this sort of area as well
04:00 Which means that defenders absolutely hate him
04:03 Just gonna show you his stats from FB ref here because they made my head fall off again bearing in mind
04:07 How bad Lester were last season to be posting those sort of numbers to be ranking that highly for these really important metrics is just
04:14 nuts
04:15 the really interesting one here though for Spurs fans is the progressive passes because Lester spent a lot of that season defending being locked
04:20 Into their own half and Madison was still moving the ball forward almost every single
04:24 Chance that he got and the reason that's important is because last season Spurs were quite bad at progressive passes
04:30 They went sideways and backwards an awful lot for the amount of possession that they had like that Madison stats the number of progressive passes
04:36 He made across the season beat every other Spurs player except for Hoiberg
04:42 But the thing about Hoiberg is because he sits so deep when he sees the ball a lot more
04:45 He made something like double the number of passes Madison did over a season and then is only
04:50 Fractionally ahead of him in terms of the progressive one. So that's that's an area
04:54 they really really needed to work on and Madison's just
04:58 Naturalized but that's the thing isn't it's all well and good going and buying a player who can do all this and could do all
05:02 That and he does assists and he does goals and he's gonna be able to like cetera, etc
05:05 It doesn't matter one bit unless it works for what you are trying to do
05:09 And the reason Spurs fans you probably need to be that excited about Madison is a hunch
05:16 Posta Cogley who could not have gone and got a better player for himself if he'd like built it in a
05:21 Frankenstein lab using just bits of old Celtic players
05:24 So, how do you make this player here work in a system where that player doesn't exist? Well
05:30 Seamlessly as it turns out. So look we don't know exactly how I'm supposed to call who's gonna set Tottenham up
05:35 I think they're gonna be something like his Celtic team
05:38 But obviously nowhere near as sort of aggressive because he can't dominate teams in the Premier League the way he was dominating them in
05:43 The SPL so it'll be a version of that. It'll have the same sort of
05:46 Fundamentals and principles and stuff like that just not quite as gung-ho and that means it'll still probably be instead of a four two
05:52 Three one a four three three with these two eights being really really important
05:57 No
05:57 Posta Cogley likes to do is he wants his wide players to stay as wide as possible to create this sort of space in the
06:03 channels for these two players
06:04 to push right the way up and get alongside the center forward this thing gets you holding midfield at a push up a bit and
06:09 You get this nice little sort of passing triangle to rotate possession and the fullbacks their job is not to get on the overlap
06:14 But they also want to get into the space that's been left and they provide crosses. They provide a counter press threat
06:20 They go into the middle as well
06:21 I appreciate this is just a submute your pitch and not real life
06:23 But you can already see from this that your two number eights are actually playing a lot higher up
06:27 They're sort of in that sort of zone Madison likes to be it
06:30 But the reason why James Madison is such a perfect buy is not because he can be a number eight and he can push forward
06:35 It's because of again how much trust managers have in him and how good he is
06:39 Recognizing gaps and spaces and getting into them
06:42 He will likely be how this Tottenham team differs from the Celtic team in that
06:46 He will still be free to go pretty much anywhere and what's important about that is they've got Kulishevsky tied down
06:51 They want to try and get the best out of Son again
06:53 This system is kind of a waste of them because there's not really that much impetus for them to get in the box
06:58 The fullbacks aren't gonna make overlapping runs the tend not to join in the play except to put other people in
07:04 But if you've got James Madison a player who you trust implicitly to go do whatever he wants
07:07 He can move out into these flanks
07:09 He does it brilliantly for Leicester and that will allow your Sons and your Kulishevskys to get in and support Harry Kane because he'll go
07:15 And play where they've left the gap and when he's not doing that because he still offers a goal threat if he is the one
07:20 Who ends up getting in the box then that's absolutely fine. His close control is brilliant
07:23 He's a good finisher his link-up play in tight areas is excellent
07:26 He's the right kind of player to have floating around a centre forward
07:30 But also someone who can move around create space and allow other attackers to get in but what's gonna really really make this work
07:36 And something I don't think James Madison gets enough credit for is there was a very good reason why loads of teams started changing
07:43 from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3 so they could get more control in the middle of the pitch and Leicester didn't do that was because
07:49 He's very capable of dropping back out of that number 10 position and just getting involved getting in the middle like having little passing
07:56 link-ups with his other two midfielders
07:57 Receiving the ball from deep and then carrying it like he doesn't just progress the ball with his passing he progresses it with his running
08:03 As well, but and this is why I'm particularly excited about this for Tottenham
08:07 You probably do if you're gonna give a player in that position all the trust and freedom to go wherever he wants to receive
08:12 The ball you need to kind of have a counterweight to that in centre midfield
08:16 Who's really really positionally aware who works hard who's got great drive who can go and fill the gaps
08:22 But his creativity is leaving and in Bentoncur
08:25 Spurs already have the absolute perfect other number eight to compliment Madison
08:30 Like I know he's not gonna be fit for the start of the season and they probably imagine it's Basuma and Hojberg
08:34 They'll sit there and they'll do all the really dirty work and all the tidy stuff in the middle
08:37 But if you've got Madison going anywhere
08:39 He wants to receive the ball and sort of impact the play Bentoncur's drive and his determination
08:44 His positioning will cover any single hole he leaves like that is possibly
08:49 One of the most exciting midfield threes in the Premier League next season if it all clicks and that's what makes this transfer so good
08:55 By the way, because the whole problem with Spurs last season was they were simultaneously an Antonio Conte team
09:01 Without actually being an Antonio Conte team
09:04 We wanted to fill them with direct runners and just workhorses and just like battle his way up the Premier League and at the European
09:10 Positions, but he never really was allowed to buy the right players for that
09:14 He got a handful of them and the rest was just sort of club signings
09:17 And now they've got this mishmash of a team that kind of is supposed to play one way
09:21 But doesn't and wants to play this other way but can't and now you've got Madison all of a sudden all the players
09:27 You've still got
09:28 Word they've got a player who can get into the number 10 position and put goals on a plate for Harry Kane
09:33 They've got a play who can drift into the wide areas to allow son and Kulishevsky to get much closer to the goal
09:39 You've got someone who can drop back into the midfield and allow them to have numerical superiority and just nice passing triangles
09:45 Around a lot of other teams in the league and you've got someone who can drop back near the defense receive the ball off them
09:52 So they don't even necessarily need a really good ball playing center back
09:56 They can just give it to him and without James Madison. You've got a center forward. He's starved of service
10:01 You've got two wide players who have nobody to really link up with you got a midfield that can't compete against the big teams and
10:06 Defenders who can't play the ball well enough to help you see what I mean?
10:09 If you're at a five or six, oh, it's a good bit of business. Oh 40 million. That's that's not bad. Is it genuinely?
10:13 Up that up that as much as you want
10:16 He's a great buy and also just away from the stats and numbers
10:19 I have friends who were Spurs fans and it doesn't feel like it's been a lot of fun being a Spurs fan for a number
10:24 Of years now you haven't had players who even when the results have been going well
10:28 Performances haven't and the players don't seem to have there's nobody who really gets you off your seat anymore other than Kane
10:34 There's nobody who when they get on the ball you feel an element of excitement with like they had with
10:38 Ericsson for example or when Dali Ali was playing at his absolute best
10:42 There's nobody who gets you excited to watch football and James Madison
10:46 Really really does so I think even just away from the numbers and the stats and what you can do on the pitch
10:50 It's a really good signing for a club that desperately needed like it's a bit of an uplift
10:55 So there you go Tottenham Hotspur fans. Are you excited about James Madison?
10:59 And if not, did you hear a word?
11:01 I just said please get it in the comments below and of course to forget like share and subscribe to 442 to world's greatest
11:06 Footballing YouTube channel will be doing these breakdowns all through the summer and then when the season starts my god
11:11 I will need more hours in the day until I look like you very much for watching
11:15 I can't wait to go open a window now that I finished filming this. I've been Adam Cleary. I will see you soon. Bye