Andros Townsend told Sky Sports during their live coverage of England U21’s European Championship defeat to Portugal that reported Leeds target Noni Madueke ‘wasn’t happy’ at Tottenham prior to leaving.
Many players, especially still in their teen years, would lap it up, stay at a club the size of Tottenham, but not for Madueke.
The 19-year-old, who made his England U21’s debut on Sunday, opted to leave Spurs for PSV two years ago and the London Evening Standard are now claiming that the likes of Leeds, Bayern and Crystal Palace are keen on his signature.
Townsend, who also came through the ranks at Tottenham, shared that there is ‘no fear’ in Madueke’s game, as he felt that he did reasonably well on his U21’s debut despite that damaging group stage loss to Portugal.
“When you are young as well, I think he’s 19, there’s no fear, no nerves and just excitement,” said Townsend.
“He was at Spurs academy. He wasn’t happy with his role and wanted to go and play first-team football. And went out to Holland.
On Madueke’s England U21 debut: “I think he will be pleased. I think we struggled to get him on the ball as much as we would have liked to.
“I think when he did get the ball. When he did isolate the fullback one v one, which is rare in today’s game, but when he did isolate, he predominately got the beating of the guy.”
Madueke is very much in the mould of an Eberechi Eze and Raphinha, a player pretty comfortable on the ball, heavily-reliant on his dribbling ability, but someone full of tricks and unpredictability.
All of this makes Madueke pretty dangerous because, at times, he doesn’t even know what he’s going to do, so it does make the defender’s life that more difficult.
He is thriving in PSV and could soon be heading back to England to haunt those in North London who perhaps should have pushed harder to keep him on their books.
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