{"id":297074,"date":"2025-10-12T10:52:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T10:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/297074\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T10:52:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T10:52:12","slug":"time-for-thomas-frank-to-bench-this-ever-present-tottenham-28-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/297074\/","title":{"rendered":"Time for Thomas Frank to bench this ever-present Tottenham 28-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tottenham Hotspur fans will be looking to the future with a sense of optimism, with the North London club starting the 2025-26 season well under new manager Thomas Frank.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spurs are in third place in the Premier League<\/a> table after seven games, with some positive results both domestically and in the Champions League this season.<\/p>\n

Tottenham signed Xavi Simons<\/a> and a host of other new players in the summer and now have a squad with strength in depth to compete on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/ Click to subscribe to the podcast \"\"\/ <\/a><\/p>\n

However, one ever-present in Frank\u2019s Tottenham<\/a> team this season is under-performing and the North London club should look to alternatives after the international break.<\/p>\n

\"ThomasPhoto by Michael Regan\/Getty ImagesRodrigo Bentancur a shadow of his former self<\/p>\n

Rodrigo Bentancur<\/a> is an experienced midfielder and a leader in the Tottenham dressing room, but the Uruguay international has not had a good start to the new season.<\/p>\n

The former Juventus man was a revelation after signing for Spurs in January 2022, but has since suffered serious injuries.<\/p>\n

While Bentancur has remained fit this season so far, Tottenham\u2019s midfield lacks mobility when he plays as he looks to have lost a yard of pace since serious knee and ankle injuries.<\/p>\n

With other midfielders waiting for a prolonged opportunity in the Spurs starting XI, it is time for Frank to use Bentancur as an impact sub to close out games from the bench.<\/p>\n

Better options for Frank to choose<\/p>\n

While Joao Palhinha has made the holding midfield position his own at Tottenham and Simons appears to be the creator of choice, Frank has a decision to make over his third midfielder.<\/p>\n

\"AZPhoto by Jeroen van den Berg\/Soccrates\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The new Tottenham manager clearly rates both Lucas Bergvall and Pape Matar Sarr, with both of these young players offering the side more than Bentancur currently.<\/p>\n

Archie Gray could be a key Tottenham player<\/a> and also deserves a chance to prove himself in midfield.<\/p>\n

With plenty of games on the horizon, Frank needs to change the make-up of his midfield and dropping Bentancur would make his Spurs side more dynamic and mobile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tottenham Hotspur fans will be looking to the future with a sense of optimism, with the North London…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":297075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[6649,151572,221,62,11131,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-297074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-english-premier-league","9":"tag-rodrigo-bentancur","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tottenham-hotspur","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115360821863024737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}