Tottenham Hotspur secured a much-needed victory in the Champions League on Wednesday night, with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s performance earning a rave review from journalist Alasdair Gold.
Antonio Conte’s side moved from third to first in Group D with their second win of the campaign.
After a 0-0 draw in Germany a week prior, Spurs emerged as 3-2 winners over Eintracht Frankfurt in north London.
Son Heung-min scored either side of a Harry Kane penalty in 16 first-half minutes having gone a goal behind, while the visitors replied late on despite going down to 10 men.
However, it was Hojbjerg who received high praise for his part in the victory, which saw the Dane register an assist for Tottenham’s third goal.
Writing for football.london, Alasdair Gold gave the midfielder a 9/10 match rating and justified it with the following comment: “Another excellent performance and another display of his attacking play as he burst down the right and delivered a perfect cross for Son to volley home in the first half. Spurs looked worse off without him and Bentancur on the pitch late on.”
TIF Thoughts on Gold’s comments…
Should Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg be a first name on the team sheet for Spurs?Yes
No
|
Indeed, Hojbjerg put in an impressive performance – and not for the first time this season.
He is second to Harry Kane in terms of his average match rating in the Premier League (as per WhoScored), while he ranks third in that metric in Europe for the club this season.
On Wednesday night, the 27-year-old completed 87% of his passes, including one key pass, one assist and three long balls.
The Denmark international also posted a joint-high of three interceptions, as well as making two clearances and one tackle.
Only Son and Kane have been involved in more goals than the former Southampton ace this season, with Hojbjerg now just two direct goal contributions shy of last season’s total of seven.
This perfectly highlights his attacking influence this term and we agree that his display was worthy of Gold’s praise.
I thought Hojbjerg played really well, although his performance level dropped, along with others, after Bentancur left the pitch, which I didn’t think was coincidental. Hojbjerg’s build up play for Son’s second goal was superb, but the final pass was, in my view, not perfect at all. He gave the ball to the right player in the right area, but Son was left with a very difficult volley, because the pass was not precise. Son executed that very difficult volley with aplomb, powerful and accurate. In my opinion Hojbjerg’s laxity in his pass was similar to his pass to Son against Brighton in the build up to Kane’s back-of the-neck and back-of-the-net “header”, in as much as his idea was clever, but the execution left something to be desired. The ball bounced sharply before reaching Son and he was forced to chest the ball down, giving a defender a chance to close him down. He beat him well and put a dangerous cross in, which Kane despatched more by luck than judgement.