Winks unfazed by flak from fans in his role as home-grown stalwart
Underappreciated Spurs midfielder has won over Jose Mourinho after initial doubts, writes Sam Wallace
When it comes to being a home-grown player, Harry Winks knows better than most that in difficult periods for Tottenham Hotspur it can mean him bearing much of the supporters’ grievances, even before he gets to the question of whether midfielders like him receive the credit they deserve.
The midfielder joined the club’s academy as a six-year-old and has stayed ever since, establishing himself under Mauricio Pochettino and then more recently Jose Mourinho – only the second manager he has known since making his debut in November 2014.
Whatever scepticism Mourinho might have entertained about Winks seems to have ebbed and he is one of those likely to start when Spurs face Wolverhampton Wanderers tomorrow after a run of two defeats by RB Leipzig in the Champions League and Chelsea last weekend.
At the Spurs training ground this week, the 24-year-old discussed the changes that Mourinho asked from him when he joined, a little more intensity in training being the first takeaway from a chat that Winks sought out.
“It was just an honest conversation, which I respect massively,” he says. “The manager did tell me what he thinks I needed to do. It started with training, just to up my levels.”
What emerges is that Winks, occasionally a target for the frustration of Spurs supporters during a patchy season for the club, is asked to tailor his game specifically to the requirements of the strategy for the game in question. He is there primarily to sweep up possession and get the team moving forward, although against Manchester City, for example, in the 2-0 win at the start of last month, it was more specifically to deny Kevin De Bruyne the space to cross from wide areas.
It is when Winks is asked whether players in his position, occupying the areas between defence and attack, are sufficiently appreciated that his response is most telling. “Honestly I don’t think we are. Everybody always talks about players like Paul Scholes, and Michael Carrick … people like Carrick get a lot of recognition after they retire. They are more players’ players as such.
“Every team, of course, needs goalscorers, attacking players, players who can sweep up the ball, but every team needs that someone who can be that link between both defence and attack.
“If you look at the greatest teams, the winning teams, they have always had that sort of player. In England especially there is always an impetus to look for the attack-minded players, the goalscorers and the people who get the assists. I think it is important to look back [also] at footballers in a different way.”
He is at pains to point out on more than one occasion that his priority is always to win, and that his own post-match mood is chiefly dictated by whether that has been accomplished. He is aware that, when things go wrong for Spurs, he can become one of the targets and he adapts his attention to social media accordingly.
“If we lose I don’t check it, because you are not looking for anything positive. There is nothing going to come out of it that’s good. If we win, of course I check it. It’s always nice to read positive things when you have done well and won. I don’t read too much into that.
“As I have got older and over the last few years I have started to realise it is best to choose your time wisely.” The pressure is back on, with the Wolves game followed by Norwich City in the FA Cup fifth round and a run of league games against Burnley, Manchester United and West Ham United, as well as that second leg in Leipzig a week on Tuesday. Mourinho wants to win the FA Cup and equally last season’s Champions League finalists do not want to bow out of that competition in the round of 16.
Winks has seen this before. “You can win three or four games on the spin and do really well,” he says, “and then you lose two and all of a sudden it’s, ‘the team aren’t good enough’, ‘the manager needs to do this’. “The manager is more experienced than anyone in the team. He knows how football is more than anybody. He doesn’t bring that pressure and stress on to us as a team and we don’t think too much into it because the last year and a half we have had that constantly.”
The Mourinho strategy is still in the “early phases”, Winks says, although it will involve building from the back, keeping the ball and creating chances, all of it for the time being without the injured Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.
It places this young England international from Hemel Hempstead at the heart of it, with all the pressure that brings, too.
‘The manager has told me what he thinks I needed to do, starting with training – just to up my levels’