‘He’s not dynamic enough’: Danny Murphy says £45m Tottenham player really isn’t good defensively

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James Maddison has earned all sorts of plaudits for his incredible start to life at Tottenham, but, as ever, there’s always a few critics.

Maddison played down the left-wing for England against Ukraine at the weekend, and, in all honesty, it wasn’t his best performance ever.

The midfielder failed to really create anything, and according to Danny Murphy, speaking on the Premier League All Access Podcast, he’s also not good enough defensively to play in that position.

Maddison not a good defender

Murphy gave his verdict on the £45m player.

“It’s been a rarity for a reason because he’s not particularly good defensively, he’s not great. He’s not a great long distance sprinter. He’s not dynamic enough to chase full-backs down and as you say the goal came from that side as Chilwell was 2 vs 1 on more than one occasion. If you’re going to give a player the freedom down the left, you’re going to leave yourself wide open down that side,” Murphy said.

Lacking

James Maddison doesn’t have many flaws to his game, but his defensive workrate is certainly one such issue.

Maddison is at his best when he’s on the ball in the final third, so we can absolutely understand why he’s not keen to track back.

The attacking midfielder is certainly a luxury player, and he wouldn’t be every manager’s cup of tea, but, luckily, at Spurs, Ange Postecoglou knows exactly how to get the best out of him and he’s arguably been the best player in the Premier League this season for that reason.