Ryan Sessegnon’s Tottenham career didn’t begin as it might have done. Like almost everybody else at White Hart Lane, Sessegnon was spun by the change of head coach and spent the rest of the season reeling from the resultant chaos.
Whatever their other differences are judged to be, Mauricio Pochettino and Jose Mourinho certainly enjoy different reputations for developing young players. And Sessegnon is still very much a young player. While 2019/20 was his fourth full season of senior football, but he only turned 20 in May and – for all intents and purposes – he remains a novice at Premier League level.
Sessegnon is a smart player. He’s not a particularly aggressive ball carrier, nor does he slalom between defenders and force great fractures in an opposing defence. Instead, his game depends on timing and understanding – on releasing the ball at the right moment or appearing in positions from which he can change a game.
Those abilities probably depend on a few things. Intelligence, of course, and the ease with which a player adapts to coaching instruction, but also instinct. Sessegnon looked very comfortable at Fulham in a way that he never has at Spurs. He looked sure of himself and certain of the chemistry around him, and that was likely as important to his level of performance as any technical attribute.
Or he did. That one Fulham season in the Premier League seems to have been extremely damaging, and his on-pitch manner this season was certainly suggestive of a haunted player, full of anxieties and self-doubt.
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It’s no surprise. Even just statistically, the differences between Sessegnon’s 2017/18 and his 2018/19 were stark. He scored 16 times in one season, then just twice in the next. He averaged fewer shots per game, fewer key passes and – perhaps most importantly – went from starting 48 games to just 28, with nine substitute appearances.
Added to which, of course, there were all sorts of other muddling factors that year. Fulham weren’t just bad, they were hopeless. They had three different managers, no settled system, and five of their most regular starters were new arrivals in the summer of 2018.
Consider that from Sessegnon’s perspective, particularly in relation to his specific abilities and their respective pre-requisites. Firstly, from a self-efficacy standpoint, the experience of transitioning from being part of a dominant team to a hapless one would not have been helpful. Certainly not for a teenager.
Secondly, the lack of literal, statistical achievement would almost certainly have challenged his self-belief, leaving a legacy of hesitant first touches and uncertain movements. Which – finally – would have been exacerbated by the swirl of strategic flux within the situation, of which his game, with its dependency on timing and understanding, would be a natural victim.
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And fast forward to the present day, at Tottenham. Sessegnon has suffered through the natural adjustment of adapting to a more talented squad. He’s also competing with better, more decorated players, and at a club where expectations and standards are higher.
But where has been the opportunity to heal these wounds?
The insinuation isn’t that Jose Mourinho has owed him special treatment. He hasn’t. Nevertheless, between playing less than 600 minutes in all competitions and having to withstand long interruptions between those opportunities, the only possible outcome was the dilemma in which Sessegnon finds himself today. He’s been marginalised, largely forgotten, and is expected to head out on loan before much longer.
It’s a great irony. Sessegnon is often and erroneously compared to Gareth Bale. They have positional similarities and their reputations bloomed at roughly the same age, but that’s where the parallels end. However, the situation facing Sessegnon now is almost identical to the one Bale encountered at the beginning of his Tottenham career.
Both suffered injuries. Both arrived at the club only to see a head coach quickly dismissed. Both saw their stock and self-confidence plummet, quickly drifting to the fringes of an underperforming squad. And, most pertinently, the solution proposed in each case was to shunt the player out on loan, in the expectation that he might reclaim his reputation elsewhere.
But that doesn’t seem logical. At least, it seems like a simple solution to a complex problem. As it was with Bale, extracting value from Sessegnon is dependent upon him acclimatising at the club and feeling like he belongs there. For obvious reasons, a loan move doesn’t really serve that objective. Instead, it just puts the problem out of sight and mind for another year.
It’s counter-intuitive, too. Sessegnon will never be the kind of dynamic player who’s able to independently change a team’s fortunes. He can be a truly excellent one, there’s no doubt about that, but his effect will always depend on continuity and chemistry. He needs to be used in the right way, yes, but also allowed the opportunity to develop the right relationships on the pitch.
Specific to Tottenham, that means knowing how close to the touchline and how far up the pitch he should be when Harry Kane drops deep to receive a pass. It means understanding how best to capitalise on Toby Alderweireld’s long-range distribution. And, more generally, from an attacking standpoint, it requires an understanding of the space created by Son Heung-min’s movement, or Giovani Lo Celso’s ball-carrying tendencies.
Quite obviously, that development cannot occur at another club. The priority here cannot just be to artificially reduce expectations and fine tune a few attributes in isolation. That’s all a loan is, really. Particularly in this case, when Sessegnon’s parent club is being managed by Mourinho, the high priest of periodisation and game-based coaching. Mauricio Pochettino was famously reticent in allowing loans. His replacement should be even more so.
This situation needs to be addressed by understanding why it occurred in the first place, and by offering the kind of holistic solution which offers a real remedy. If Ryan Sessegnon is to be a success at Tottenham, then at Tottenham he must stay.
NOT CONVINCED? Why a Ryan Sessegnon transfer back to Fulham this summer would make sense for everyone – even Tottenham
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