Antonio Conte will be using this World Cup break to work on drilling his philosophy into some of his players and that might include finding the best position for two of his midfielders.
Rodrigo Bentancur and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg have reached new heights under Conte and have become the first choice pairing for Tottenham in the centre of the pitch. However, Spurs have become so reliant on the duo that they have been overplayed, particularly during the frantic run of 13 matches in 43 days ahead of this mid-season break.
Only Harry Kane, Eric Dier and Hugo Lloris have played more minutes than Hojbjerg (1,825) and Bentancur (1,736) across all competitions this season. Their accumulation of minutes is because Conte does not yet seem to fully trust summer signing Yves Bissouma and academy product Oliver Skipp to fill their shoes.
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Conte will need to begin to trust at least one of them because UEFA's rules suggest Hojbjerg is suspended for Tottenham's Champions League last 16 first leg match away at AC Milan in February. The Dane picked up a third yellow card in the group stages in added time of the final game at Marseille a couple of minutes before his winning goal.
That meant Hojbjerg had been booked in all three of Spurs' away games in the group stages, with yellow cards at Sporting and Frankfurt. Three yellow cards in the group stages means a suspension in the next game and, unfortunately for the Dane, UEFA's rules state that yellow cards carry over to the knockout stages and do not get wiped out until after the completion of the quarter-finals.
On top of that, Bentancur is suspended from the next Premier League match at Brentford after picking up his fifth yellow card,
That means Conte is going to have to trust someone else in the engine room at the San Siro and at the Gtech Community Stadium. Both Bissouma and Skipp will be competing for the role and they will have the coming weeks to impress the Tottenham head coach on the training pitches at Hotspur Way.
Both offer a lot to Conte if he can find the best way to utilise them. Bissouma has been one of the best midfielders in the Premier League in recent seasons with his displays for Brighton and had his contract not been reaching its conclusion then he would likely have cost double the £30m including potential add-ons that it cost Spurs to prise him away in the summer.
However, his integration at Tottenham since arriving has been more gradual than he would have liked.
"The only player that is struggling a bit with the tactical aspect is Bissouma, but also he is improving a lot in every aspect," Conte told football.london back in September. "I am sure when we start again and play 12 games [during the pre-World Cup fixture pile-up], for sure he is another player I can count on but I try to take the best decision for the player because I want to protect the player."
He added: "The midfielder is a specific role for us, with the ball and without the ball. It's not simple. I ask for some moments, some positions. They have to be a point of reference in every moment of the game.
"The midfielder for sure, to go into our idea of football is maybe the most difficult position, but we are talking about a player that has great skill, good running. With the ball he's really good, defensively he has to pay more attention. More attention because especially we only have two midfielders and then they have to be good with the ball and without the ball, but I'm really happy with his signing."
The 26-year-old's more recent displays against Leicester and Liverpool have shown what he can do but he's still nowhere near the player yet that he was at Brighton.
Then there is Oliver Skipp. Spurs have high hopes for the 22-year-old and Conte believes that the England U21 international can become a top midfielder.
"This player is very young. He has really a lot of space for improvement. He played with great intensity, great passion, with heart, with soul. I think it was important because for me he doesn’t care if he’s only 21-years-old, who deserves to play," Conte told football.london after Skipp impressed against Brentford last season.
"I think that I can improve him a lot in possession and technically, to look before the play that they have to do. We’re talking about an important prospect and I'm very happy for him, but now he has to continue in this way.
"For sure, the part that he has to improve is with the ball but in one month I have seen a lot of improvement about Skippy. He’s a player who wants to improve. I think that the present and the future depends on him. If he wants to become a top midfielder, he could become a top midfielder, but he has to continue to work. He has this will, this desire to become an important player for Tottenham and for the present and for the future."
From the end of January Skipp had to spend months out as a pelvic injury grew too difficult to manage and during that time a frustrated Conte admitted that the young midfielder had already become an important player for him. After surgery towards the end of the season and making a full recovery in the summer, Skipp then suffered a freak injury that kept him out of the first month of the new campaign.
Conte has used him sparingly since, with just two Premier League starts to his name, but most frustratingly perhaps for Skipp is that he and Bissouma have been used in each other's best positions.
The Italian will often play with three in midfield on the rare occasions he's not starting one of Bentancur or Hojbjerg and when both Skipp and Bissouma play, the former, normally a holding midfielder, has been used as one of the more attacking midfielders. That has seen him having to act as almost a winger at times, trying to get down the right and putting the ball into the box.
For the 22-year-old, he made his name on loan as the anchorman in Norwich's Championship-winning season, and while he is adaptable, the position is not getting the best out of him.
In the same vein, Bissouma is being used as the deepest-lying defensive midfielder, despite Conte's public statement that he needed to improve his defending. At Brighton, the Mali international would often play in the centre of a two in a 3-4-3 or 4-2-3-1 or in a box to box role in a midfield three.
From the outside it feels like a simple switch of the two players would unlock better performances from them both. Conte will have his reasons for doing the opposite but with Hojbjerg missing the big match in Milan and Bentancur the return to Premier League action, he needs to get to the bottom of the issue in the coming weeks.
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