Football.London journalist Alasdair Gold discussed all of the latest Tottenham Hotspur news on the most recent video that has been posted to his YouTube channel and he reflected on Spurs’ 1-0 UEFA Europa League loss to Royal Antwerp on Thursday evening during the show.
A 29th-minute goal from Lior Refaelov gave the home side the lead and that ended up being the only goal of this game. As per the BBC, Ben Davies ‘helped Royal Antwerp’ in Thursday’s game, as Congolese striker Dieumerci Mbokani ‘easily dispossessed’ him prior to assisting Refaelov’s goal.
During this recent YouTube video, Gold shared some criticism of Davies’ performance in this game, with the journalist blasting the role that the Welshman played in the Belgian side’s goal and sharing that he doesn’t think this was the only error he made in the match.
He said: “Ben Davies had a real mixed game. Obviously, the mistake for the goal was daft. Dithering in possession, I had no idea what he was doing and [he] gave that ball away and let them run on to score. He made a couple of other silly positional mistakes but then, on the other hand, made a couple of great blocks as well.”
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TIF Thoughts on what Gold had to say about Davies’ performance versus Royal Antwerp…
So, while Gold wasn’t entirely critical of Davies’ performance on Thursday, with the journalist acknowledging that the Wales international did make some positive defensive contributions for his side in the form of some “great blocks,” it’s also clear that he believes the 27-year-old made multiple mistakes in this game, one of which ultimately allowed the opposition to score the only goal of the game. As a result, perhaps Gold’s criticism of that particular mistake is justified.
In addition to making the mistake that led to the only goal of the game, Davies earned the second-lowest overall WhoScored rating (6.16) of any Spurs player to have played the full 90 minutes versus Antwerp, which also doesn’t provide a positive reflection on his performance on Thursday.
Davies has featured regularly for Spurs this term, with the Welshman playing in 10 of the north London club’s 12 games in all competitions thus far in the 2020/21 campaign. However, given that he made the mistake that led to Antwerp’s goal in this game and knowing that Mourinho stated, after the game, that his “future choices are going to be very easy” with regard to squad selection following Thursday’s game, it will be interesting to see if Davies’ mistake results in him enjoying less game time from now on.