Pundit Kenny Cunningham believes that Everton midfielder Allan is ‘the type of player’ that Jose Mourinho needs at Tottenham.
Cunningham was a guest on the latest episode of the OTB Football podcast. The panel discussed multiple issues in European football and they also discussed Spurs’ 1-0 defeat to Everton in their opening game of the Premier League campaign. Cunningham believes that Everton’s Allan is the sort of player that Mourinho needs at Spurs.
Spurs signed Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg from Southampton earlier this summer for a fee of around £15m plus bonuses. The midfielder’s main strengths include his ability to make ball interceptions, win aerial duels and his concentration. He is someone who likes to tackle as well. Hojbjerg had started in the defeat to Everton and picked up an unimpressive 6.45 rating.
Cunningham believes that Allan is the sort of player that Spurs need. The Brazilian joined Everton from Napoli earlier this month for a fee of £21m, according to BBC Sport.
He said: “They haven’t got anybody who can defend, they haven’t got anybody with a real kind of tenacity in there with their physical presence who can go and make tackles and dominate that area of the pitch.”
Do you think Allan would have been a good signing for Spurs?
Yes
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Cunningham continued: “Now they’ve brought Hojbjerg in. I was scratching my head a little bit. Hojbjerg is a decent enough player, but wouldn’t come into that category, for me. Allan’s the one for me, I thought it was a great buy by [Carlo] Ancelotti – [I’ve] seen him play at Napoli a lot. He’s been out of the Napoli team, but not because he’s been playing badly, it is just that they have [an abundance] of talent in there at the moment.
“He’s the type of player Spurs needed. He only cost an extra £4-5m of what they paid for Hojbjerg.”
TIF Thoughts…
Allan enjoyed a very good game on Sunday as he picked up a rating of 7.24. He is also someone who likes to tackle, whilst his other strengths include his ability to dribble the ball, play through-balls and his passing (as per WhoScored).
So he clearly has more strengths than Hojbjerg currently. While the Brazilian did impress on Sunday, it might be too early to judge Hojbjerg and Allan from just one game. So Spurs fans should be patient about Hojbjerg and hope that he improves his performances in the next few games.