Mathys Tel

Mathys Henri Tel



Current Club: Tottenham Hotspur.

Previous Clubs: Bayern Munich, Stade Rennais, Montrouge, AS Jeunesse Aubervilliers, Paris FC, FC Villiers.

Loan Clubs: Tottenham Hotspur.





International: N/A.

Trophies Won: German Bundesliga 2022/23, 2024/25. Europa League 2024/25. European Under-17 Championship 2022.





I have to admit that I was very surprised that Spurs made his loan move into a permanent deal after his lack of impact at the end of last season. He is seen as having a lot of potential being just 20, but I have yet to see any sign of improvement in his game at all. There are a lot of good points to his game, but it is just that they are usually overshadowed by the weaknesses.



He is blisteringly quick and very good with either foot, while Tel is mainly right footed, he is confident and capable of using his left, though strikes with that foot are noticeably weaker. He also has quick feet and a great leap on him, but he is weak, he is easily pushed off the ball or brushed aside. That often leads to him running the ball into touch when he is trying to dribble out wide.



Tel's dribbling is very much a weak point, especially when he is under pressure from an opponent or opponents. I have seen it described as him panicking and I can very much see what they mean as he just tries to knock it past to run onto, usually hitting it straight into the man in front of him. Sometimes he picks up a ricochet or rebound and can bumble through, but it only takes the opposition to use their body and he is on the floor due to his weakness.



Overall he does lack aggression, though he is not afraid to put himself in the mix when attacking a ball with a chance to score, at any other time, particularly when defending, he is very half-hearted. That is not so much an issue if he does end up playing centre-forward, but it puts a lot of pressure on the full-back behind him while Tel is playing on the wing. He possesses and excellent cross and can ping a good pass, but he does not get his head up for crosses, and so it is usually just into an area.



With longer passes, though he is very capable of pinging it 60 yards, he often tends to underhit them, in fact the weight of his pass is the biggest weakness of his passing game when he is on the front foot. Tel has no consistency to his passing, it is impossible for opposition to know what he will do, as he can pass off either foot. Unfortunately teammates also struggle as the pass has such an inconsistent weighting, they never know whether they need to be racing on to it or waiting for it.



When it comes to his shooting, Tel is very consistent, he lacks composure and almost always just smashes it in the general direction of the goal, which quite often means straight at the keeper. He needs to work on his shot selection and learn to spot when a chip or placed shot would be better. As a centre-forward, he is poor playing with his back to goal as his first touch often bounces off too far and he ends up chasing the ball and just knocking it back.



In all the footage I watched, not once, whether out wide or up top, did he receive the ball, tightly control it and look to turn his man and move the ball forward. His lack of strength does not help him in this, it only takes a slight nudge to move him bodily and ruin his attempts to control a ball first time. If ever a player could be described as lightweight, it is Mathys Tel.



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