Garth Crooks has named Davinson Sanchez in his Premier League Team of the Week, admitting that he was surprised by the Colombian’s performance against Norwich.
Following Cristian Romero’s hamstring injury, Sanchez has been named to start at right-centre-back in all of Tottenham’s last three games, although the game against Burnley did not go ahead due to heavy snowfall.
The 25-year-old has now helped Antonio Conte’s men keep two back-to-back clean sheets in wins over Brentford and Norwich.
Sanchez’s performance against the Canaries was arguably his best of the campaign so far as he put in some impressive challenges and blocks to prevent Dean Smith’s side from creating opportunities.
The former Ajax man also scored the home side’s all-important second goal in the 3-0 win, thumping the ball home from close range after it fell to him kindly from a corner kick.
Crooks admitted that he did not expect Sanchez to feature again under Conte after his poor performance against NS Mura but praised the Spurs defender for his display yesterday.
The former Tottenham forward wrote in his BBC Sport column about Sanchez: “I saw this lad have a shocker in Tottenham’s 2-1 defeat in Slovenia in the Europa Conference League.
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“At the time I thought that Antonio Conte wouldn’t play the defender again in anything remotely resembling a serious fixture.
“However, the player returned for the match against Norwich (not the most demanding game) and not only played his part in a defensive unit that kept a valuable clean sheet but scored the goal that put the game well beyond the Canaries.
“Maybe there’s hope for this player under Conte after all.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Cristian Romero’s injury has provided Sanchez with an opportunity to save his Tottenham career. I suspect the Colombian would have been sold in January if the Argentine had been fit to start over the last few weeks.
I still have doubts over Sanchez, mainly because of his deficiencies on the ball and his tendency to lose concentration. However, he certainly deserves to keep his place in the side on the back of that performance.
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