Aaron Lennon has said labelled his former teammate Jermaine Jenas as a ‘top player’, insisting that the midfielder got way more criticism than he deserved.
Jenas made more than 200 appearances for Tottenham Hotspur and won 21 caps for England and while he did have some outstanding performances for both club and country, he never quite had the consistency to be talked about in the same breath as other top players in the division, partly due to his injury issues.
The midfielder split the Spurs fan base in his early years at the club and towards the end of his time at the club, it is fair to say that he had far more detractors than supporters.
During some parts of his career, Jenas threatened to make the step up to the next level, notably in the first six months of Juande Ramos’ reign, with the former Spurs man playing a key role in Tottenham’s League Cup win in 2008.
Lennon believes that the 41-year-old did not get the credit he deserved during his time at White Hart Lane.
Aaron Lennon believes Jermaine Jenas deserved more credit
When asked who the unsung hero was at Spurs, the winger said on Off The Shelf Podcast: “It’s a tough question to be fair. Who got a bit of stick? I’m going to say JJ (Jermaine Jenas). When we first came through he was a top player, properly underrated, he got more stick than he deserved and not enough credit.”
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Jenas had all the raw materials to be a top midfielder, including a fantastic engine, good passing range and defensive awareness but he never quite managed to put those pieces together and fulfill his potential.
I have to admit that I belonged to the minority of Spurs fans who quite liked JJ, who I felt was often made the scapegoat by many supporters at the time.
In a strange way, I think he was a little ahead of his time as I felt Jenas would have been a much better fit for a three-man midfield than for a 4-4-2, which was the most common system during much of his Premier League career.