Alan Smith has blasted Toby Alderweireld for his “poor defending” in the first-half of Tottenham’s 1-0 loss against Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Spurs controlled most of the opening 45 minutes but there was one moment when Josh King managed to get past the Spurs defence and into a one-on-one situation against Hugo Lloris.
It all came from a hopeful ball forward which Alderweireld completely failed to deal with.
Ex-Arsenal striker Smith was not at all impressed with the Belgium international.
“It’s poor defending from Toby Alderweireld,” said Smith during commentary on Sky Sports Premier League on Saturday [01:08pm].
“Just a long straight punt and he makes a real mess of it.”
OPINION
It was very uncharacteristic of Alderweireld when he failed to deal with a relatively simple ball forward by Bournemouth. Norway forward King was presented with a great chance to score for Bournemouth and even could have won a penalty after he collided with Spurs goalkeeper Hugo Lloris in the one-on-one. Luckily for Alderweireld, the south coast club didn’t score and only came away from the play with a corner kick. Alderweireld needs to try and stay more sharp to stop things like that from happening because he has not been in the best of form lately. Jan Vertonghen missed the match because of the head injury he sustained against Ajax in the Champions League earlier this week and Spurs’ defence looked a lot worse because of him missing. Alderweireld needs to learn to step up in games when Vertonghen isn’t playing because it seems to happen quite often, but with him likely to leave in the summer, there might not be any point.