After falling to a 1-0 defeat at dwelling to fierce rivals Arsenal on Sunday afternoon, there was an expectation amongst followers that Tottenham Hotspur would flip up and brush apart Coventry Metropolis within the League Cup final night time to get their season rolling – they did not.

As an alternative, Ange Postecoglou put out a workforce stuffed with second-string gamers, and up till the 88th minute, it seemed like he was going to pay the value, just for Djed Spence and Brennan Johnson to bail him out.

It may need been the worst efficiency of the Australian’s reign so far, and whereas the 2 goalscorers deserve credit score for his or her efforts, a lot of the workforce doesn’t, together with one younger star who wasn’t horrible however nonetheless should not begin in opposition to Brentford on the weekend.

Lucas Bergvall’s sport vs Coventry

Sure, the teenager in query is Swedish midfielder Lucas Bergvall, who was making his first begin for the membership final night time.

The very first thing to say is that, sadly for Postecoglou, a number of starters performed themselves out of the workforce for this weekend and seemed significantly worse than the 18-year-old.

That mentioned, it was no shock that gamers like Timo Werner and Fraser Forster had been disappointing, whereas the joy and hype across the younger Swede made it more durable to disregard his considerably underwhelming show.

Now, to his credit score, the Stockholm-born gem seemed vibrant right here and there, by no means shied away from the ball and did not make any big errors that value the workforce.

Nonetheless, except for trying busy, he struggled to have a tangible affect on the match, struggled to play the correct ball when introduced with the prospect to take action and misplaced possession a couple of too many instances, which might all be forgivable in opposition to a prime facet within the Premier League, however Coventry are 14th within the Championship and could be the worst workforce the teenager performs this season.

It is an opinion shared by the Normal’s Dan Kilpatrick, who awarded the midfielder a 6/10 on the night time, writing that he ‘at all times made himself out there however [the] closing ball was missing.’

This appraisal is backed up by the participant’s statistics from the match as nicely, as in his 62 minutes of motion, he took 47 touches, maintained a passing accuracy of simply 87%, misplaced 4 of 5 crosses, failed in 50% of his dribbles, misplaced 5 of eight duels, misplaced the ball 13 instances equating to as soon as each 4.7 minutes and made one error that led to a Coventry shot.

Total, it was not a horror debut for Bergvall, and given the immense potential many imagine him to own, he’ll nearly actually make amends in his subsequent begin, however with a troublesome Brentford workforce arising on Saturday, that begin mustn’t come then.

Who ought to begin rather than Bergvall

So, whereas a number of gamers may are available in for the younger Swede in opposition to the Bees, his compatriot Dejan Kulusevski ought to take his place.

The skilled Swedish worldwide has spent a lot of his time at Spurs enjoying on the wing, however not too long ago, Postecoglou has taken to beginning him in midfield, and as most followers will attest, that’s the place he does his greatest work.

For instance, you solely need to look again ultimately night time’s sport to see the affect he can have, as he got here on late for the injured Werner and floated between midfield and the extensive positions.

In simply 16 minutes on the pitch, he created one large likelihood, offered one help, took a shot on track and had a shot blocked, took 15 touches, and acquired an 8/10 ranking from Kipatrick.

Furthermore, regardless of being on the shedding facet within the North London Derby, the previous Juventus ace was one of many few shining lights for the workforce in midfield, for which he was given a 7/10 by soccer.london’s Alasdair Gold.

Lastly, James Maddison will seemingly are available in for the underwhelming Pape Matar Sarr on Saturday, so there are few different offensively-minded choices for the supervisor to choose from.

Finally, final night time was a dreadful day on the workplace for Spurs, and whereas Bergvall actually wasn’t the worst participant on the pitch, he’s nonetheless not prepared to start out a Premier League sport, no much less one in opposition to a workforce who nearly drew on the Etihad final weekend. Subsequently, Postecoglou ought to drop the teenager again to the bench on Saturday and begin Kulusevski in his place, as he may be much more influential in large video games.