Player Feature: Andros Townsend

Andros Townsend

When Andre Villas-Boas chose to retain young English winger Andros Townsend for him to compete for a spot in Spurs’ starting XI, I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have been able to imagine the impact the youngster would have made. He has kept Spurs’ much-fancied record signing Erik Lamela benched and also played a pivotal role in helping England qualify for the World Cup.

Townsend has most certainly had to earn his chance at Spurs. He was sent out on loan to nine different clubs with QPR being the last club he was farmed out to. He did well enough to convince Villas-Boas that he was good enough for Spurs and he has certainly done well so far.

The English winger, who is of Cypriot and Jamaican descent, is a speedy player who likes to take on the opposition defender and use his pace whenever he can. He has a good work-rate defensively, rarely failing to track back whenever Tottenham lose possession. Being a left-footed player who prefers playing on the right, he also likes having a shot from distance every now and then although the success of those shots often vary. However, his pace and trickery do manage to cause problems more often than not.

He does have his weaknesses as well. He can become a little too predictable at times. He likes shooting from distance but on a bad day, that’s all he seems to do. His crossing isn’t as good as he or his manager would like it to be although that’s something is working on. He also has a tendency of going down under the challenge a little too easily i.e. diving. However, he has admitted that he does dive and is trying his best to kick it out of his game, which is good to hear.

Townsend can definitely be a star for England and Spurs in the future; he certainly has the potential. There are two things he has to watch out for. Firstly, he has to improve on the weaknesses in his game. That means he has to improve his crossing and to a certain extent, even his shooting. He also needs to improve his decision-making i.e. when to shoot, when to cross, when to play the simple pass and so on. He is a natural talent and is also hard-working; now he needs to put in that extra mile to go from good to great.

The second thing he must do (and I cannot stress how important this is) is not let the media hype get to him. A couple of good performances have already started earning him comparisons to Gareth Bale. It’s hardly fair on Townsend to be dubbed the ‘next big thing’ after a couple of half-decent performances. It’s one thing to encourage a player when he’s having a good run of form; it’s another thing to hype him up so much that he gets engulfed in his own hype and eventually fizzles out. It’s happened to many English players over the years. Townsend must make sure he doesn’t go down the same route.