During Tottenham Hotspur’s impressive 2016/17 campaign, Harry Winks became the next young prospect to emerge from the Spurs academy system.

Now 23 years old, the now England midfielder has become an integral part of Mauricio Pochettino’s plans and is a firm fan favourite at White Hart Lane.

There has however been rumblings from some quarters that Winks is not quite the player he’s being made out to be. With accusations that the midfielder is too risk averse on the ball as well as having significant defensive shortcomings, the question that needs to be answered is whether Harry Winks is actually any good?

From a purely aesthetic perspective, Winks looks like a good player. He has tremendous balance and poise, appears completely comfortable with the football at his feet and strokes his passes with good weight and accuracy. It is easy to see why fans like him, especially when he celebrates goals going in like he’s in the stands himself. Add in the local boy factor, and it is very hard telling Spurs fans he may not be as good as they think.

So let’s look at some details. Winks made his Premier League debut in 2016/17 away at Middlesbrough, where he spent a majority of the season used as a substitute, with the odd starting appearance including scoring on his first start against West Ham. This foray into the opposition box was not a sign of things to come however. Whilst in his 575 minutes that season he averaged 1.1 touches in the box per 90, this may be explained by the fact all of these touches came whilst the impenetrable duo of Mousa Dembele and Victor Wanyama were on the field. He had licence to break forward.

Winks higher up, protected by the Dembele/Wanyama brick wall

Playing in a more advanced central midfield role, Winks produced his highest volume of dribbles in a Spurs shirt at 3.29 per 90, with just over 50% being successful. Winks dribbling ability is more evasive than invasive, and perhaps this came from receiving the ball under more immediate pressure on higher layers of the pitch, where he used his ability to feint and escape opponents — he rarely engages players in 1v1 duels. Out of possession, he contributed 5.63 interceptions per 90, and was successful in 44% of his 5.63 defensive duels per 90.

As he developed, Spurs central midfield underwent some significant changes. Mousa Dembele first declined, then was sold, and Eric Dier and Victor Wanyama succumbed to a spate of injuries. Winks now moved into a deeper lying role, where he has played since.

He has also suffered injury problems of his own in that time, and has not actually played a huge amount of football since his breakthrough season. With just 3451 Premier League minutes across 33 starts and 34 sub appearances, this is the equivalent of around about a full season of Premier League action. It’s certainly enough to form a good opinion about his talent and potential, however it is fairly early in developmental terms.

In 2017/18, Winks returned to action after recovering from an ankle injury sustained at Burnley in April 2017. He was soon gaining plaudits after a composed display away at Real Madrid in the Champions League, and played regularly until he suffered a further ankle injury in January 2018 which ruled him out for the rest of the season. He managed to play 837 minutes in this campaign before injury hit, and there were some subtle changes to his output as he assumed a deeper role.

Here his volume of passes increased, and his volume of dribbles decreased, however the latter was replaced by an increase in progressive runs (or carrying the ball forward) which increased from 0.31 per 90 to 1.51 per 90. As the image depicts, he was now receiving the ball in less congested areas, where he found more room to drive forward with the ball.

Deepest midfielder in a 3–5–2

In this role Winks got through a lot of passes, as he consistently made himself available to receive the ball and move it on quickly. Naturally he made far fewer touches in the opposition box, as he largely remained behind the ball to recycle possession and provide supporting angles. Getting through just under 70 passes per 90 — a figure he maintained into the 2018/19 season, it has been questioned what value his high volume of passing is adding to the team.

In the 2018/19 season saw Winks play his most consistent run of football to date in his career. That the season still included injury problems for the midfielder shows just how often he has seen his development held back. He did however manage to amass 1720 Premier League minutes, as well as playing regularly throughout Spurs run to the Champions League final.

Looking at central midfielders who completed more than 1000 minutes of Premier League action in 2018/19, it is immediately clear that Winks is not someone who consistently looks to force the play with his passing

Premier League 2018/19 — Central Midfielders > 1000 mins

As you can see, for such a high volume passer, Winks doesn’t attempt progressive passes all too often, with just 11.42% of his passes progressing the ball forwards (30m forward if the pass started within his own half, 10m forward if in the opposition half — I have a few issues with this metric, not least the way it is collected, but it is a starting point nonetheless).

This tallies with the eye test in that Winks picks his moments and rarely looks to force the issue, content to keep the ball moving from side to side, and leaving the ball progression to his teammates. The problem in 2018/19 was that there was no one else in central midfield who could provide that — indeed, in Spurs ‘Air Raid’ attacking strategy, ball progression through passing was left largely to the Spurs back line (in traditional parlance, this meant ‘shelling it long’).