Micky Van de Ven: Tottenham's top goalscorer has enjoyed impressive season - but Spurs should not be so reliant on a centre-back
Days into his new job as Tottenham head coach Thomas Frank pulled Micky Van de Ven aside to deliver some mixed feedback – to tell him he admired him as a defender but that he did not score enough goals for a player of his stature.
The towering 6'4" centre-back did not find the back of the net in an injury-hit 2024/25 but 14 games into the Frank era, he is their top scorer and was the architect of the 3-0 win at Everton on Sunday.
Some Spurs fans had joked it needed Frank to remind him how tall he was given his previous lack of aerial prowess - but more seriously, that early feedback certainly sparked something.
Last season, only six centre-backs won a lower percentage of aerial duels of those who played more than 1,000 minutes. Five were three inches or more shorter than Van de Ven.
His improvement in open play this campaign has been modest but more marked from set-pieces, from which he has scored all five of his goals. It is one of Frank's biggest achievements at the club so far.
If Ange Postecoglou was an idealist, the Dane is the true pragmatist. Earlier in his managerial career he was not convinced by the virtue of set-pieces, but has long since made them one of the strongest weapons in his armoury.
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"I have always wanted to develop things," he said earlier this week. "Where is the edge? How can we do things to potentially win a match?"
Without that attitude, Van de Ven's first-half double at Everton on Sunday would not have happened and the result, in a game where Spurs did not play particularly well in open play, may have been much different.
"Big praise to Micky, and especially to Andreas [Georgson, Spurs set-piece coach]," said Frank after those goals - the first brace Van de Ven has scored in his career.
Tottenham have been strong at attacking set-plays for some time and have the fifth-best scoring record from corners in Europe's top five leagues since the start of 2023/24.
But Georgson's individual work with players including Van de Ven has fine tuned things.
A centre-back in his own playing days, he first worked with Frank in 2019 at Brentford where his work was so highly valued he became the first in a line of set-piece coaches poached by Arsenal the following year.
More widely than his work with Van de Ven, he has helped Spurs come seconds away from winning the Super Cup in August through a pair of goals from free-kicks, and masterminded those two from corners against an Everton side previously unbeaten from a set-piece all season.
Sunday's was a perfect away day in many respects. Spurs soaked up pressure, scored at the right times and slowed the game down where possible - only two teams have taken longer over restarts all season - to leave Merseyside with a comprehensive result. You can see why they are unbeaten on the road this season.
But the rise of Van de Ven and his importance to Spurs' attacking output is also a symbol of deficiencies elsewhere. Tottenham can get away with gritty, attritional results away from home where any three points are welcome and the band of ultras in the away end don't need inspiring.
But at home, a Champions League club that spent over £150m last summer demands more. It's not that Frank can't play both ways; his Brentford side developed year-on-year and scored just three goals fewer than second-placed Arsenal in his final season.
But things are yet to click for him on that front here. Just four teams have had more possession than Spurs on home soil but they are one of six with less than 100 opposition box touches. Only Nottingham Forest and West Ham have scored fewer goals in front of their own fans.
Possession without purpose is very un-Frank-like and owes more to a void of creativity in the team than his own design. He has been robbed of both Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison all season, the two players in the Spurs side most capable of unlocking tight defences and making the most of their other attacking talent.
Spurs have won just 14 of the 50 games where one or both players have been missing since the start of 2023/24, and 22 of the 35 where both started - scoring an extra 0.6 goals per game on average. It's plain to see what could change when they return.
Xavi Simons was meant to plug the gap but out of necessity is having to learn on the job as he adapts to the physicality and pace of the Premier League, starting five of their six league matches since his arrival and clearly struggling at times with the league's intensity. It is easily forgotten the £51.8m summer signing, capped 31 times for the Netherlands, is only 22 years old.
More will be demanded in time but for the moment, there is enough goodwill to go around with Spurs a tentative third in the Premier League. This is not a season built on solid foundations, and Frank has had to be creative to replace that creativity.
That pragmatism has bought him goodwill so far. But with Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal and Newcastle coming in their next five league games, the biggest tests yet of his adaptability are on their way.
