It’s once again going to be a season like no other is 22/23. The fixture list is mad and Happy Squad Players are going to be key.
Some tish and fipsy newspaper talk of Lucas Moura being a potential makeweight in any Tottenham deal with Everton for Richarlison got me thinking.
Always dangerous, that. We touched on it in some drivel about the wider implications of that deal – including, not insignificantly, that it won’t happen – but there’s something about players like Moura that feels particularly important in The Modern Game.
Players who, at whatever level you happen to be talking about, aren’t quite good enough to be starting players but are still useful players to have around a squad and yet manage to do that without being either an albatross or bad influence on the rest of the group.
Moura was a bit-part player as Conteball took full hold of Spurs. He started just two of the last 16 matches of the season, and it’s a pretty neat cut-off; he started the grim 2-0 home defeat to Wolves and he did not start the 3-2 win over Manchester City that followed.
Yet he came off the bench in 11 of the 14 games he didn’t start and missed another through injury. Only twice was he available and not used at all.
Moura is, by all accounts, happy enough with this arrangement. He has made no noises about wanting to leave or demanding more time. The obvious contrast exists at his own club, where the similarly sparsely deployed Steven Bergwijn has made his desire to move clear.
Neither player’s approach is wrong. Bergwijn has one eye on the World Cup having missed out on the Netherlands’ squad for last summer’s Euros in part because of his lack of action for Spurs. Both are good enough to play more regularly at a club slightly further down the food chain.
But a player like Moura is of huge value to a coach. A player like that must tread a fine line. Their contentment that prevents them becoming a drain on the general mood of the squad mustn’t tip over into a complacency that can be just as damaging.
It obviously helps if, as Moura does for Spurs, they offer something different to the starters they are likely to replace. Since January, that has fallen neatly into place for Spurs, where Dejan Kulusevski has been a revelation in a starting role. He is a cerebral, thoughtful footballer who can occasionally slow the pace of Spurs’ attacks but has the game awareness, vision and technique that makes this a worthwhile trade. Moura is an altogether more…
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