Tottenham Hotspur have been told that one star of theirs has been "more impressive" than James Maddison, but "nobody paid attention" to him.
Spurs form under Ange Postecoglou
The north Londoners are enjoying somewhat of a fairytale beginning to the Premier League season, with popular Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou making the finest start to a campaign of any new manager in recent English football history. The Lilywhites have won seven out of their opening nine top flight matches, remaining unbeaten over a run which has seriously surprised on-lookers.
Speaking to Premier League productions earlier this month, pundit Ian Wright hailed praise for Postecoglou and his start to life at Spurs; candidly admitting he is shocked by how good the tactician really is.
“It’s underrated,” said Wright. “It’s an underrated effort he is doing, at the minute. Major Ange Postecoglou fans. I remember people saying at the start that ‘he needs to start well’. With the players he has got, you want them to do well and win some games and stuff. But I didn’t expect it to be in the grove it is now and so quickly.
“Not just physically, but mentally as well. They know what they are doing – we are looking at a team that we know that will improve simply because Bentancur is to come back."
The Australian has a few star players to thank for his new-found popularity in north London, with summer signing Maddison proving to be nearly unstoppable at times. Maddison signed for Spurs from Leicester City for around £40 million in the summer, which is proving to be more and more of a bargain as the weeks go by. The England international has racked up three goals and five assists in the league alone so far, most recently helping Tottenham to a 2-0 win over Fulham on Monday.
He's now gearing up for a clash against Crystal Palace tomorrow, where Tottenham are surely favourites to clinch all three points and maintain their very impressive start to the campaign.
Guglielmo Vicario "even more impressive" than Maddison
However, despite Maddison's truly electric start, one pundit believes goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario has actually been "even more impressive" with his stellar contribution between the sticks. Indeed, speaking to ESPN, Janusz Michallik has claimed that "nobody paid attention" to Vicario who is now really pulling up trees at Spurs.
“It’s easy to point at James Maddison, all the goals and how they’re scoring in so many different ways. But defensively what he’s done is even more impressive. They’re the second-best defensive team, look at Vicario, Google probably went down when Vicario came to London because nobody paid attention to who he was, but, today, we’re talking about Sanchez, Onana and Raya, here you have Vicario who is excellent,” Michallik said.
Signed from Empoli to replace Hugo Lloris, the Italy international has made some pretty important saves in big moments, with Fabrizio Romano recently revealing Spurs are "very happy" with Vicario.
"Tottenham are very happy with Guglielmo Vicario and his impact with English football. Understand real fee invested by Spurs to sign Vicario from Empoli was €19m. Top signing."