Stan Collymore has argued that James Maddison might struggle to cope with the pressure of playing for the very best teams, which is why only the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United went in for the attacking midfielder.
Tottenham officially announced the signing of Maddison last night, and Spurs fans will be excited to see the creative midfielder in a Lilywhite shirt next season.
Alasdair Gold revealed on Football.London recently that Ange Postecoglou is a big fan of Maddison and that the Australian believes the attacking midfielder will help him to implement the type of front-foot football he is hoping to at Tottenham.
Collymore implies Maddison is not a top-tier player
However, Collymore has suggested that the England international is not in the top echelon of players, which is why the likes of Manchester United are not going after him.
The pundit wrote in his column on CaughtOffside: “Maddison will leave Leicester City as the biggest fish in a small pond, and if he went to Old Trafford, suddenly he’d be a very small fish in an ocean.
“Would he rise to the occasion and thrive off the pressure, or would he shrink? – All you have to do for an example of what the latter looks like is look at Jadon Sancho.
“Someone asked me recently – if Man United are happy to spend £50m on a midfielder and have identified an England international in his mid-20s as the ideal candidate then why don’t they go for James Maddison from Leicester City?
“It’s a good question, but signing Maddison is a completely different prospect to signing Mount, and I think that’s why we’re seeing the likes of Spurs and Newcastle linked with him, and Man United and Liverpool linked with Mount – and that’s no disrespect to either of the former, but it’s telling of where the sides are in terms of their projects.”
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You can also make the argument that players like James Maddison could thrive while playing alongside better players.
Only time will tell if the 26-year-old proves to be successful at Spurs (if the move does go through) but he certainly ticks plenty of boxes for Postecoglou.
