Micky van de Ven believes Xavi Simons could be the solution to the creative flatness threatening to undermine Tottenham\u2019s start to the\u00a0season.<\/p>\n
With Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison sustaining long-term \u00adinjuries and Dominic Solanke undergoing a procedure on his \u00adtroublesome ankle, Tottenham have started to look a little predictable in forward areas and form has stuttered over the past month. Thomas Frank acknowledged<\/a> before Spurs\u2019 2-2 Champions League draw<\/a> with the Norwegian champions, Bod\u00f8\/Glimt, on Tuesday that the almost complete change to the front four \u2013 with Son Heung-min having left<\/a> \u2013 has created problems.<\/p>\n Simons arrived from RB Leipzig<\/a> just before the end of the transfer window for more than \u00a350m. He is still adapting, but he set up a goal against West Ham<\/a> and played a key role coming off the bench in Tottenham\u2019s late comeback in Norway.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a really good player,\u201d said Van de Ven, who headed Spurs\u2019 first goal. \u201cHe can create a lot of special things. I think you saw he came on and did really well. You can see the creativity he has.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Van de Ven, like Simons, has played in the Netherlands and Germany, they have never played against each other, but the defender does know him from the Netherlands national side and clearly feels a responsibility to his compatriot.<\/p>\n \u201cI speak a lot with him,\u201d Van de Ven said, \u201cbut what also helps him a lot is he speaks a lot of languages so he can get on with a lot of other players as well. I try to help him on and off the pitch with every small detail he asks for. I\u2019m there for him to help him as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Tottenham\u2019s early-season momentum has slightly stalled in recent weeks, and they have conceded the opening goal in three of their past four games \u2013 the exception was Doncaster in the Carabao Cup. Frank was not overly concerned, pointing out the circumstances in each of those matches \u2013 against Brighton<\/a>, Wolves<\/a> and Bod\u00f8\/Glimt \u2013 were very different. Tuesday was the only one of the three games in which Spurs really looked second-best.<\/p>\n Micky van de Ven (right) runs the ball back to the centre spot after pulling a goal back in Norway. Photograph: Lise \u00c5serud\/AP<\/p>\n Van de Ven, like his manager, preferred to focus on the resilience Tottenham have shown to battle back and draw on all three occasions. \u201cFrom our side, it was a really difficult game,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were 2-0 down and it shows our mentality to come back to 2-2 and get a point. Today was not our best performance, of course. We struggled a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n With Cristian Romero absent, Van de Ven captained Spurs for the first time and he looks certain to be part of a leadership group that Frank will name on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a proud moment to lead the group out in a Champions League game,\u201d he said. \u201cTo be honest I went into the game the same as I always do. It\u2019s not like there is some extra pressure on you. But it\u2019s a moment you dream of when you\u2019re a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Micky van de Ven believes Xavi Simons could be the solution to the creative flatness threatening to undermine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-183127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}