James Maddison has opened up on Tottenham Hotspur’s injury crisis after another difficult Premier League campaign, with the midfielder insisting the club must investigate why so many key players were sidelined throughout the season.
Back-to-back 17th-place finishes in the Premier League are nothing to celebrate for a club of Tottenham Hotspur’s stature.
However, that was the reality for the Lilywhites, who followed up their Europa League triumph last season with a disastrous league campaign that saw them finish on 41 points, just two clear of the relegation places.
It was far from straightforward for Roberto De Zerbi’s men, who went through three managerial appointments before finally finding some rhythm towards the end of the season and avoiding the drop.
James Maddison highlights Tottenham injury crisis
James Maddison, however, believes Tottenham’s fortunes could have been very different had several key players remained fit throughout the season.
Spurs were without Dejan Kulusevski, who played zero minutes after being sidelined for over a year. Maddison himself did not feature competitively for Spurs for more than a year following the ACL injury he suffered in pre-season.
Xavi Simons and Wilson Odobert later joined the treatment table after suffering ACL injuries of their own, while Mohammed Kudus missed the second half of the season. Dominic Solanke also had to contend with ankle and muscle problems that limited his involvement this term.
Speaking to The Athletic, after the win over Everton, Maddison explained why he believes Spurs’ injury problems played a huge role in their struggles this season.
“Our situation with the injuries has been worse than any other club,” Maddison said. “People try and say, ‘Oh, but we’ve got this and that’. But ours is astronomical and we need to look at why that is.
“Sometimes it can just be unlucky, sometimes it can be a coincidence, like me doing my ACL or Kulusevski getting a horrendous knock off (Marc) Guehi. That’s not the medical team, that’s not the pitch or all the theories that you see, sometimes that’s rubbish.
“We’ve been a bit unlucky. But like I said, the big names that we’ve missed, it does affect you and you cannot just deny that. If we had had myself, Kulusevski and Kudus, and (Rodrigo) Bentancur missed three months and whatnot.
“If you had had them for the whole season, we would not have been in this situation, I strongly believe. That is just not me being naive, that is just a fact. But it is the situation we find ourselves in, and I am just proud of the lads to dig deep today.”
Spurs must improve after difficult season
Maddison also admitted there was more relief than celebration after Spurs secured survival on the final day of the season.
Speaking about the club’s standards after avoiding relegation, the midfielder said he felt “relieved” rather than overjoyed, while stressing the need for Tottenham to improve moving forward.
“I’ve been involved in three games off the bench at the end so I am trying to give you the answers you are looking for without being fully in it,” he said.
“But the reality is, we have not been good enough. That is why we are in the position we are in. Now, we have to really figure out over the summer why that was the case and go back to the team that won the Europa League, the team that before would have got Champions League and stuff like that which we were not far away from.”
Maddison was also full of praise for Roberto De Zerbi, who replaced Igor Tudor as head coach in March and guided Spurs to 11 points from a possible 21. The midfielder revealed the Italian and his staff had been fully committed behind the scenes at Hotspur Way.
He added, “Without that appointment, disaster could have maybe struck, but it did not, and he takes a lot of credit for that because of the work he’s done behind the scenes and on the training pitch.
“I thought we were brilliant today in a big pressurised game. I thought the first half was brilliant. We played really well, the intensity was there and that is what you want to see from a Tottenham team.”