James Maddison believes that Tottenham are no longer ‘Spursy’ after coming from behind twice to draw with Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
The England midfielder provided both assists for Son Heung-min’s equalisers after the Gunners twice went ahead through a Cristian Romero own goal and a Bukayo Saka penalty.
Arsenal overwhelmed the visitors in the first half, but failed to seal the win as Tottenham fought their way back into the game. Maddison thinks the performance and result shows the club isn’t as “soft” and “weak” as is often portrayed.
“Neutrals talk about Tottenham, they often say; soft, weak, bottle it, Spursy, all that rubbish, he told talkSPORT.
“I think the last couple of weeks shows we might be going in a slightly different direction.”
Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou echoed Maddison’s comments in his post-match press conference after coming through a tough encounter.
“We’re not going to dominate Arsenal for 90 minutes, no chance,” he said. “We just kept playing, didn’t get flustered and lose belief.
“That’s a good sign as we’ve got challenges for sure. There are more obstacles we need to overcome to become the team we want to be.”
Maddison came off the pitch with 12 minutes remaining after seemingly hurting his knee earlier in the second half. But the 26-year-old did manage to play on briefly before being replaced by Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. He is due to have a scan on the injury this week.
“I just had a little moment where I tackled Jorginho and I jolted my knee a little bit,” he told Sky Sports.
“You don’t want to ever be playing in a derby where you’re not 100 percent because you don’t want to cost the team. But I thought the lads were decent and 2-2 was probably a fair result.”
