Roberto De Zerbi has just shown that Tottenham can win without a traditional playmaker, and now, with three games left and James Maddison finally edging towards a return, we have to ask an uncomfortable but genuinely exciting question: what does Maddison actually come back to?
Villa Park was supposed to expose us. Xavi Simons‘ ACL had stripped away our last natural central creator, and the assumption, reasonable given Tottenham’s season, was that without a true playmaker threading the game together, we’d be toothless in attack and ragged in possession. Instead, De Zerbi found an answer we hadn’t quite expected.
Spurs produced arguably their finest performance of the season to beat Aston Villa 2-1 and move out of the relegation zone on Sunday, with goals from Conor Gallagher and Richarlison giving De Zerbi back-to-back Premier League wins for the first time since the opening two games of the campaign. The performance mattered as much as the result.
Tottenham dominated possession with over 60 per cent of the ball, scored twice from their only two shots on target in the first half, and executed De Zerbi’s press with a discipline and intensity that had been absent for large stretches of this season.
The creative responsibility was not centralised: Randal Kolo Muani drove forward from the left, Mathys Tel provided constant movement and the assist for Richarlison’s goal, while Gallagher dictated from central midfield with the composure that earned him a 9/10 rating. De Zerbi spread the load. Which makes the Maddison question harder to answer, not because he isn’t wanted, but because the system has just shown it doesn’t need him to function.
De Zerbi has hinted that James Maddison won’t start for Tottenham any time soon
Before Sunday’s trip to Villa Park, De Zerbi was asked directly about Maddison’s involvement in the final run-in. His answer was revealing in ways that perhaps didn’t receive enough attention.
“I don’t know, I would like to play with him, because he’s a special player, he’s a different player,” he said, before adding that he “can be important in the next three games.” Important. Not essential. Not the first name on the teamsheet. Important.
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Of course, reading too much into a single press conference quote is a trap we should avoid. De Zerbi is a manager who chooses his words carefully and rarely commits to selection specifics publicly.
But there is a meaningful distinction between telling the world a player is important and telling the world he’s going to start. The language of “experience, personality, calm” describes a player who shapes a dressing room and influences a game from the bench – and that framing matters more now that Sunday has shown the system can win without a number ten in it.
Maddison is not coming back as the player who left last August
There is no denying that the James Maddison who suffered his ACL injury in South Korea last August was one of the most important players at this football club.
He was the heartbeat of the team under Ange Postecoglou in his first season, a player who could unlock defences with a single through ball, who dropped into pockets, who set the tempo. We have highlighted this season just how much his absence has cost us in creative output and leadership.
But nine months on the sidelines is not nothing. Injury expert Ben Dinnery has told Football London that the realistic scenario for Maddison is careful reintegration: ten to twenty minutes off the bench, gradual minutes, building towards the 2026-27 season rather than arriving as a season-saving figure in the final three games of this one.
Dinnery’s timeline suggests Maddison’s best football may not return until the 2027-28 campaign, which is not an easy thing to read. It’s also a risk De Zerbi himself has flagged repeatedly since the Mohammed Kudus setback showed what happens when a returning player is pushed too hard, too early.
Starting Maddison now would cost Tottenham more than it gives
The eleven who won at Aston Villa earned the right to start at Leeds on Monday night, and the case for disrupting them is weaker than it looks.
Gallagher was extraordinary at Villa Park, a nine-rated performance that included the opening goal and a midfield display that completely controlled the first half. Dropping him to accommodate Maddison in the number ten role would be a significant gamble. Dropping Tel, who provides the relentless pressing and physical threat that suits De Zerbi’s system, would feel similarly wrong.
The honest reality is that Maddison has not yet played a competitive minute this season. Forcing him into the starting eleven risks disrupting a system that has just delivered its finest performance of the campaign. Coming off the bench when legs tire, when the opposition press drops, when defensive structures open up, that is the version of Maddison that makes sense right now, and it is precisely when a player of his technical quality becomes most dangerous.
A fresh Maddison in the 70th minute against opponents who have been chasing Kolo Muani and Tel for an hour is a very different proposition to a rusty Maddison starting cold. It’s not the role he had before his injury, but it may be the right one for where he is.
Is Maddison the starter he was before his injury, or is this a new era for Tottenham’s attack?
This is the real question at the heart of it. And the honest answer is that we don’t yet know, which is not a criticism of Maddison – it is simply the truth of where the rehabilitation process is.
What Maddison offers De Zerbi is something the current eleven does not always have: the ability to drop into tight spaces and pick the pass behind the last line. Tel and Kolo Muani are direct and physical. Gallagher is box-to-box. That specific skill becomes more valuable as opponents sit deeper, and as the games become more desperate, more sides will do exactly that.
Maddison walking back into this setup is not a simple case of slotting into his old role, because that role no longer exists in quite the same way, but there is a version of it that fits, and De Zerbi seems to know what it looks like.
If Spurs stay up, the conversation about Maddison’s place in 2026-27 becomes the most important tactical discussion of the summer. Can he return to his pre-injury levels and reclaim the creative centre of De Zerbi’s system? These are good problems to have, the kind you solve when survival is secured.
For now, Sunday didn’t diminish what Maddison brings to Tottenham. It reframed it – and if he can deliver impact minutes over the next three games, it may be the contribution that keeps Spurs in the Premier League.