Thomas Frank admits he
still doesn’t know his best Tottenham team, but after back-to-back
starts in central midfield, 19-year-old Archie
Gray might well be part of that XI.
Almost 18 months on from making a £40 million move from Leeds
United, Archie Gray now has a reasonable claim to being a part
of Tottenham’s
first-choice starting XI.
That was never the case last season, despite the fact he played
a vast amount of football. At just 18 years old for much of the
campaign, Gray was one of the few Spurs players who avoided injury
for the whole season. That record, along with professionalism and
maturity well beyond his years, and both versatility and
willingness to do whatever is asked of him, meant he ended up as
one of the most important players in the squad for 2024-25.
Yet at no point was he a first-choice pick.
In his first season in the Premier League, Gray was integral for
the eventual Europa League champions as they suffered a
debilitating injury crisis that very nearly wrecked the year.
From week to week, the youngster’s job was changed between
various roles which, largely, weren’t where he’d have chosen to
play. Across his 19 Premier
League starts in 2024-25, Gray played at right-back, right
centre-back, left centre-back, left-back, as a number six, and as a
number eight. In the Europa League, he didn’t even get to play in
midfield.
There were never any complaints from Gray, despite the fact he
was essentially being hung out to dry, playing out of position in a
makeshift back line behind a midfield ill-equipped to protect him.
Exposed and vulnerable, Gray was unable to stem the flow of goals,
as Spurs broke their club record for goals conceded in a 38-game
Premier League season, with 65.
And when first-team players returned from injury and nudged Gray
out of the team, he kept on diligently doing his job, which by the
end of the season was to fill in for what had become meaningless
Premier League games while manager Ange Postecoglou protected and
rested his best defenders for the Europa League run.
Even though Gray played 3,243 minutes – that’s 54 hours of
football – across 46 appearances in all competitions, by the end of
the season, we still hadn’t seen a great deal of what had convinced
Spurs to pay all that money for him. Only four other players played
more minutes than him, but there was so clearly so much more to
come.
Essentially, he had spent most of his time on the pitch with
everything in front of him, in the back four, spreading the ball
from side to side, and making those infamous Ange-ball recovery
runs that led to
Micky van de Ven’s hamstring popping every few months. Gray’s,
while tested less than Van de Ven’s, proved rather more
durable.
In fact, the calf injury that ruled him out for a few weeks from
late October this season is the first injury of his senior career.
He made 47 Championship appearances as Leeds United fell at the
final hurdle in the 2023-24 play-offs, and was available for the
whole of his first season at Spurs, too.
Now, under Thomas Frank, he is finally getting some chances in
his preferred position in midfield. He has played a few minutes at
left-back, but otherwise his game time has come entirely in central
midfield. In that position, he has been able to showcase the
breadth of his talents rather better, and in the last few weeks, he
has put in some eye-catching performances that appear to have
cemented his place in the first team, for now at least.
Able to receive the ball on the half-turn and help his team
progress play, Gray has brought something to the Tottenham team
that has been painfully lacking – to the disdain of many fans – in
recent weeks. Until recently, Frank has gone with
Rodrigo Bentancur and João
Palhinha in midfield, and while that combination has
significant defensive strengths, there have been a few particularly
dire attacking performances recently, leading to calls for
changes.
Palhinha, a summer signing on loan from Bayern Munich, is one of
the best ball-winners around, but he is very, very limited in
possession. He almost never turns on the ball, instead relentlessly
playing the simplest pass to a nearby teammate. He has made at
least 10 more tackles than any other player in the Premier League
this season (61) despite playing just 76.8% of the available
minutes.
However, of the 75 midfielders to play at least 600 minutes,
only 14 have made a lower proportion of passes that can be defined
as progressive (4.6%) – open-play successful passes played in the
attacking two-thirds of the pitch that move the ball at least 25%
closer to the goal. He might have made Spurs more solid – something
that was clearly necessary after last season, and which Frank has
prioritised – but Palhinha’s lack of ability on the ball has
severely limited what Spurs have been able to do in attack. And
that has led to a loss of patience from large swathes of the
fans.
Gray isn’t an elite ball-winner. He averages 1.2 tackles per 90
in Premier League games this season, while Palhinha makes a barely
human 5.3 and Bentancur makes 2.2, though when it comes to
interceptions, all three make 1.2 per 90. Spurs might be a little
less solid with Gray in midfield, but they are without doubt more
exciting.
A slightly higher proportion of his successful passes in Premier
League games this season have been classed as progressive (5.8%)
than either Palhinha or Bentancur (4.2%) but, on top of that, he
moves the team up the pitch by carrying the ball very often. He
makes more progressive carries – moving with the ball at least five
metres towards the opposition’s goal – per 90 than any other Spurs
central midfielder (6.8). He adds forward thrust to the Spurs team
that has otherwise been lacking.
It isn’t a complete coincidence that he started in the middle
for the impressive performance in defeat at PSG last month, as well
as back-to-back, to-nil victories in the past week, over Brentford
and Slavia Prague.
Against Brentford, he completed his first 90 minutes of the
season against top-flight opposition and found a teammate with
93.9% of his passes, the highest of any player on the pitch, all
while protecting the defence with a couple of tackles and four
clearances.
Against Slavia Prague on Tuesday, Gray was given a little more
freedom playing alongside rather than instead of Palhinha. He got
about the pitch well, and while completing 23 of his 25 attempted
passes (92.0%), he played a couple of risky forward balls, of which
there haven’t been enough under Frank.
First, he put the ball over the top for Pedro
Porro to run onto before he was fouled in the box to win the
penalty that Mohammed
Kudus converted, and then he won the ball in midfield before
playing Wilson
Odobert in on goal down the left for a chance that the
Frenchman should really have scored.
Gray can play as the deepest midfielder, but for now, he appears
at his best when he can get into attacking positions. He rescued a
draw at Bodø/Glimt in September after coming off the bench by
bursting into the box and drilling a low ball into the middle to
force an own goal, and against PSG, he produced a pinpoint
back-post cross after overlapping down the left to put Spurs into
an unlikely lead away to the European champions.
“I am very pleased with the performance,” Frank said after that
game, which came just a few days after the dismal defeat at
Arsenal. “Today was much more the identity of the team, the bravery
and aggressiveness of the team.”
Gray wasn’t solely responsible, of course. Fellow teenage
midfielder Lucas
Bergvall was also key. Perhaps too was the change in shape to
more of a 4-4-2, with Richarlison
and
Randal Kolo Muani up front. There was also clearly more
front-footed mindset after offering so little against Arsenal, as
well as against Chelsea a few weeks earlier. It all added up to
something rather more like what both Frank and the fans want to see
from this team.
After starting back-to-back games in central midfield, Gray is
adding to the wealth of experience he already has across the top
two tiers as well as in Europe, but now in the position where his
future surely lies.
Only last week, ahead of the Brentford game, Frank admitted he
is still working out who would be in his best Spurs team.
But following two wins in a week – only the third time he has
won successive games with his new club – with Gray at the heart of
the team, the youngster is putting forward a good case to have his
name included.
As Spurs enter the busiest period of the season, Gray’s
tenacity, industry and forward-thinking game are looking
increasingly useful for a team who have been all too lacking in
direction of late.
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