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Tottenham Hotspur: Burley criticises Bergwijn’s role in defeat to Liverpool

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Former Scotland international midfielder and current ESPN pundit Craig Burley has been discussing Tottenham Hotspur’s midweek Premier League loss to Liverpool and the pundit has declared that had Steven Bergwijn’s finishing been on the level of his Spurs teammates Harry Kane and Heung-min Son, the Lilywhites could have “shut up shop” at Anfield. 

Spurs ultimately ended up suffering a 2-1 loss on Wednesday at Anfield, as Roberto Firmino’s 90th-minute winner secured the win for Jurgen Klopp’s men. 

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However, while discussing the Lilywhites’ loss to the 2019/20 Premier League title winners with Frank Leboeuf, Jurgen Klinsmann and Dan Thomas, the ESPN pundit indicated that he felt Spurs had all three points within their grasp and highlighted Bergwijn’s finishing as a catalyst to their downfall, saying:

“Really, if Bergwijn had the composure of Kane and Son, it would have been 3-1 and they might have just shut up shop. So, yeah, they can be frustrating, but I thought they could’ve had this game dead and buried. I think Liverpool have got away with one.”

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TIF Thoughts on what Burley had to say about Bergwijn…

Bergwijn, who signed for Tottenham from PSV Eindhoven in January for £27m and currently earns just over £73k per week at the north London club, per Spotrac, was given the second-lowest WhoScored rating (6.21) of any Lilywhites player to have started this game and perhaps the quality of finishing he displayed on Wednesday did have something to do with his underwhelming rating. 

Per Understat, Bergwijn generated the highest total xG of any Tottenham player in this game, with one of his missed chances, which came in the 45th minute of the game, being awarded an xG value of 0.34, which is just 0.01 lower than the xG given to Son’s chance in the 32nd minute, which the South Korea international converted. 

As a result, you could certainly argue that if Son or Kane had gotten on the end of the chances that Bergwijn did, the result of this contest would have been different. 

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