Tottenham have finally found their Gareth Bale replacement ...Middle East

Mohammed Kudus might feel a pang of nerves on his first day as a Tottenham Hotspur player.

Last October, the Ghana international was sent off during West Ham’s 4-1 defeat to Tottenham after pushing Micky van de Ven and Pape Matar Sarr in the face and sending Richarlison to the turf with his shoulder.

Kudus made a dramatic exit from the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that day; he will hope that his entrance at Hotspur Way is more low-key.

Spurs have agreed to pay their London rivals £55m for the 24-year-old who will become Thomas Frank’s second signing following the £5m capture of Japanese defender Kota Takai.

Once the shock at seeing their assailant in his Tottenham training gear has subsided, Van de Ven and co may feel enthused by the addition of an exciting attacker to their Europa League-winning squad.

For Kudus, second-season syndrome happened in reverse.

He made an electric start to his West Ham career after joining from Ajax for £35m in 2023, scoring 14 goals and setting up six more in 45 games. Last season, his numbers dropped to five goals and four assists in 35 matches.

Kudus’ production slowed, but his dribbling output remained high. In both Premier League seasons, Kudus has topped the attempted dribbles charts, surpassing the 200 mark each time (221 in 2023-24 and 208 in 2024-25).

He has attempted 59 more than any other player since the start of 2023-24, with Manchester City’s full-back tormentor Jeremy Doku in second place.

A 50.3 per cent success rate across both campaigns indicates that his darting runs don’t always pay off, but that is to be expected of a high-volume dribbler. Lionel Messi’s success rate for Inter Miami this year is only fractionally higher (at 51.4 per cent).

Kudus, you imagine, isn’t especially bothered about his dribbling stats.

“I play with so much risk and try to create stuff in the game out of nothing,” he told The Athletic in July 2024. He is an exponent of high risk, high reward.

There is variety to Kudus’ ball-carrying. As a kid, Kudus played football on sandy pitches in Ghana. It is where he sharpened his exceptional close control and developed a knack for wriggling out of tight spaces.

“Your control, your touch… everything has to be on point to play on surfaces like that,” he said in March.

While wiry in stature, Kudus is strong enough to withstand challenges and also possesses the acceleration to burst past defenders and make up ground quickly on the counter-attack. He will be an asset to Spurs both against low blocks and high lines, given his intricate dribbling style and speed off the ball.

All elements of his repertoire came together when he scored a superb solo goal (later nominated for Fifa’s Puskas Award) against Freiburg in the 2023-24 Europa League. It was an unstoppable blend of pace and poise, power and panache.

Your next read

Six big calls that saved the Lionesses’ Euros

Crystal Palace are an expendable pawn in the multi-club madness

Lionesses roar back into Euros contention as James dazzles against Netherlands

Crystal Palace set to be kicked out of Europa League after Lyon win appeal

He adds something a little bit different to Frank’s squad. Dejan Kulusevski was the only Tottenham player to attempt more than 100 dribbles in the Premier League last season, with 13 players bettering his total of 117. Wilson Odobert is the most comparable Spurs attacker to Kudus, but is right-footed and plays on the left.

It has been a long time since Tottenham had a dribbler as direct as their new recruit. Only one Spurs player in the past 12 seasons has been in the Premier League’s top 10 dribblers: Dele Alli, who was eighth with 129 in 2016-17.

You have to go back to the 2010s to find a Tottenham player who consistently ranked high in the dribbling stakes. Gareth Bale was third, sixth and third again for the dribbles attempted metric from 2010-11 to 2012-13.

Kudus may not replicate Bale’s achievements – the latter was a year younger than Kudus is now when he left Spurs for Real Madrid. However, as a direct, dynamic and versatile left-footer, he is probably the closest thing Tottenham have had to Bale since the Welshman’s first stint in north London.

That alone should give Spurs supporters cause for excitement.

Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Tottenham have finally found their Gareth Bale replacement )

Also on site :

• Wall Street’s advice after Nvidia hits historic $4 trillion market cap: BUY
• Cheez-Its confirms huge recipe change – new crackers are missing a key ingredient from the original version
• Israel arrests 50 across occupied West Bank; Jenin displaced return briefly