What does Tottenham’s best central midfield pairing now look like?

In the space of six months, Tottenham Hotspur’s central midfield has gone from a key area of concern for Antonio Conte to an area of the squad that is now bursting with quality options for the head coach to choose from.

The January arrival of Rodrigo Bentancur from Juventus to partner the dependable Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg provided Conte with a reliable and consistent pairing in the Spurs engine room to contribute towards the pursuit of Champions League football at the end of the 2021/22 season.

Clinching a place in the top four allowed the midfield to be strengthened even further, with one of the Premier League’s most effective ball-winners in Yves Bissouma who signed from Brighton in June for a fee believed to be in the region of £25m.

The return to fitness of Oliver Skipp after missing most of the second half of last season with a pelvic injury, combined with the arrival at the club of 19-year-old Senegalese midfielder Pape Matar Sarr after he remained on loan at FC Metz in 21/22, meant there was no place for Harry Winks – who made 30 appearances across all competitions last season – on Spurs’ pre-season tour of South Korea.

In the 6-3 victory against the K-League All-Stars on Wednesday, Bentancur, Hojbjerg, Skipp and Sarr all featured as Conte gave 22 different players a run out in the club’s first preparation game ahead of the 2022/23 season. Bissouma missed out alongside fellow summer arrival Fraser Forster after both tested positive for Covid-19.

Whilst attempting to decide who his regular starters in midfield should be is likely the sort of headache that the Italian will not mind having, and with Spurs returning to the Champions League next season the fixture list will demand squad rotation throughout the campaign, studying the midfield composition of some of his previous sides may tell us who his favoured central midfield duo will be come August.

Conte has been known to set up his teams with three central midfielders. This slight modification to the 3-4-3 formation that has brought him success in the Premier League with both Tottenham and Chelsea was utilised regularly during his Serie A-winning spells at Juventus and Inter Milan, helping to get the best out of individuals as varied as Christian Eriksen, Nicolo Barella and Paul Pogba.

However, it seems almost certain that for now Conte will most regularly stick with the midfield double-pivot that contributed to securing a top-four place at Arsenal’s expense. The pairing of Hojbjerg and Bentancur provided Spurs with the requisite control within matches for havoc to be wreaked by a devastating attacking trio of Heung-Min Son, Harry Kane and Dejan Kulusevski.

The summer addition of Richarlison from Everton for a fee believed to be in the region of £60m only adds further weight to the idea that Conte will continue to operate with a system that incorporates three out-and-out forward players.

A proposed return to Spurs for Eriksen was ultimately decided against by the club hierarchy, and given the Danish international played in both a two-man and three-man midfield for Conte at Inter Milan, passing up the opportunity to bring him back to north London would suggest that the Italian is more than satisfied with his current midfield options.

The statistics indicate that he has every right to be as well. According to fbREF, both Hojbjerg and Bentancur were among the top 25 players in the Premier League last season in terms of pass completion, with the former Southampton man ranking in the 88th percentile for progressive passes among midfielders in Europe’s big five leagues, and Uruguayan international Bentancur in the 82nd percentile in terms of pressures and the 81st in relation to blocks.

The statistical profiles of the two midfielders that played a significant role in helping Spurs qualify for the Champions League are in fact quite similar – Bentancur also ranks highly in terms of attempted passes and pass completion and Hojbjerg ranks highly in terms of blocks – yet it may be that their head coach is looking for greater variety in terms of his midfielder options.

The central midfielders in Conte’s system are largely responsible for playing direct passes to either the wing-backs or the forward players, and then remaining disciplined in a positional sense in order to quickly regain possession when attacking moves break down.

In Conte’s first season at Chelsea, N’Golo Kanté and Nemanja Matić formed one of the most effective midfield partnerships in recent Premier League history once the former Italian national team manager had abandoned an attempt to implement a 4-2-3-1 formation early in the season in favour of his preferred back three system.

Both the French World Cup winner and the Serbian international ranked among the top 20 players in the Premier League that season in terms of pass completion, yet Kante’s average of 3.6 tackles per 90 was the third-highest number of any player in the league and considerably more than the 1.5 averaged by Matic. Conversely, Matic ranked higher than his midfield partner in terms of key passes.

This indicates that adding Bissouma to the squad may well be an attempt to add some variety as much as it is designed to create greater depth and competition for places.

Although signing the 25-year-old would have likely improved any side in the Premier League given the standard of his performances over the past two seasons for Brighton – fbRef ranks him in the 86th percentile for interceptions and 87th for tackles – it is not entirely obvious if it will be the place of Bentancur or Hojbjerg that he takes in the starting XI.

The Malian also ranking in the 91st percentile for pass completion indicates that he would be equally comfortable operating in either role, and the fact that he is in the 90th percentile for dribbles completed suggests that he could in fact add a new dimension to Conte’s system if necessary.

Writing off the chances of Skipp establishing himself as a regular starter should be tempered by the fact that he both posted impressive statistics in a loan spell at Norwich two seasons ago before being one of the few Spurs players to impress during Nuno Espirito Santo’s short stint in charge.

In the 2020/21 Championship season, only seven players averaged more tackles per 90 than Skipp’s 2.2 despite the fact that the England under-21 international was playing in a possession-heavy Norwich side – exemplified by the fact that he had the third-highest pass completion percentage in the division at the end of the campaign.

The consistency of Bentancur and Hojbjerg coupled with the impressive addition of Bissouma and the return to fitness of Skipp means that even attempting to predict the make-up of Tottenham’s midfield for their season opener against Southampton on 6 August is something of a challenge.

Spurs will be hoping that they can remain in European competition beyond Christmas this season, and with the squad continuing to grow during the transfer window, progress in the domestic cups becomes a more and more realistic possibility. Given the fixture list such a season would entail, there will be a need to rotate between midfield options based on both fitness and tactical requirements, meaning there may in fact not be a ‘first-choice’ pairing.

Even though Conte will doubtless be hoping for further additions to his squad before the transfer window closes, he can surely have few complaints about the current composition of his midfield.

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