Tottenham’s Under-16s coach Yaya Toure sat down with midfielder Yves Bissouma to discuss the challenges of playing for a big club in the Premier League.
To many people’s surprise, Bissouma has made just one start since arriving at the club from Brighton in the summer, with Antonio Conte continuing to show faith in the midfield pairing of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur.
However, the 26-year-old’s talent is not in doubt, and he demonstrated in his 20-minute cameo against Leicester City on Saturday just what he can offer both on and off the ball.
The Mali international sat down with Toure, who is arguably the best African player to ever grace the Premier League, to discuss the challenges of adapting to different styles of play and the importance of trying to continue improving as a player.
Bissouma also admitted that he looked up to the Manchester City legend as a youngster.
Yaya gave the new Spurs recruit the following advice (Football London):
“For me I think football has been our passion, it has been our belief and lift. The most important is try to be coachable, when I say try to be coachable…listen and focus all the time, always be focused.
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“Take care of yourself. It’s really, really important because games in Premier League come week in, week out. Playing for me has always been [more] important than training.
“That doesn’t mean I say don’t train, you have to train and always try to be available as much as you can because for your development it is really, really important.
“For me, I have been learning and developing when I was playing more games because I confront myself with different kinds of players from around the world, like when I go to the national team or play in the Premier League it was totally different. I was learning more and more and trying to be better and better.
“The one good piece of advice I have to give to you is every day make as much as possible to improve. Every day.
“Sometimes some players go to the session or the training and sometimes they are bored or sometimes thinking what are they doing today. They don’t realise when I come to the session that it has to be a session where I have to learn and improve.
“In everything, I have been doing I have to improve. I have to improve how I get my muscles to rest well, every day I get a massage before I go home, coming back in the morning I have to drink one litre or two litre bottles of water to be clean.
“Coming to the session, even if it’s a poor session or the best session of work, how I can improve myself because the coaches are there to help you improve.
“The most important is how you get the best out of it and you can take that with you. For you every day it is time for you to develop to improve and be better and better. Everything for me was challenging, but everything for me was learning as well.
“If it was passing session for one hour my passing has to be better and better and better. I have to get clip of it and when I pass like that it is better and when I pass like that it is no good. I have to change it.”
Bissouma joked that he had his eyes on the Balon d’Or following Toure’s advice…
Watch their full discussion on SpursPlay by clicking here.
Spurs Web Opinion
Having the opportunity to speak and learn from someone who Bissouma, self-admittedly, idolised, can do wonders for the Mali international. I was very impressed with the 26-year-old’s display against the Foxes, and I am hopeful that he will take confidence from that performance.
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