Premier League powerhouses Spurs were thumped by a Marcel Sabitzer inspired RB Leipzig in the Champions League this week.
When Marcel Sabitzer tore through Tottenham Hotspur’s paper thin midfield to score twice in the opening half hour of Wednesday’s humiliating Champions League defeat to RB Leipzig, the visiting support must have been longing for better times.
There was something distinctly familiar about the way Julian Nagelsmann’s captain marvel made those perfectly timed runs into the area before fizzing two inch-perfect efforts past Hugo Lloris; the first with his wand of a right foot and the second with his head.
Taking his tally to 15 in all competitions this season, Sabitzer produced the kind of heroic midfield display that a certain Rafael Van der Vaart at his peak would have been proud of.
“Sabi was world class!” the Austrian’s Leipzig teammate Emil Forsberg told SportBuzzer after arguably the most famous night in his club’s history. “A great night with an alien Sabi.”
With Christian Eriksen long gone and Dele Alli still looking like a pale imitation of his 2017 peak, Jose Mourinho would undoubtedly benefit from a player like Sabitzer, linking the play, driving the team forward and providing goals and assists aplenty in the final third.
In fact, Tottenham have not had a midfielder so prolific and so reliable in the final third since the heady days of Van der Vaart, winning games almost single-handedly while dazzling White Hart Lane with his ability to make something out of nothing.
Calciomercato reported on Wednesday, with the dust still settling on Sabitzer’s masterclass, that Tottenham are planning to return to Leipzig for their £40 million dynamo at the end of the season.
And if he can make a similar impact on North London as a certain Dutch play-maker that will be money well spent.
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