James Maddison found himself out of a Premier League starting XI for the first time this season for Tottenham's clash against Aston Villa. The emergence of Dejan Kulusevski in a central role has seen his minutes impacted as Ange Postecoglou attempts to find the perfect midfield balance with Pape Matar Sarr preferred on this occasion.
Being named on the bench in league action has appeared inevitable for some time, though, with Maddison an unused substitute earlier in the week for the Carabao Cup win over Manchester City. Prior to that, he had been subbed off early against both West Ham and Crystal Palace.
With Spurs racing into a 3-1 lead, the need for creative Maddison to come on and make an impact seemed to be dwindling. However, an injury to Richarlison, who had only just replaced Son Heung-min, gave Maddison the final eight minutes on the pitch and he certainly took advantage of that.
Following a foul on Dominic Solanke, who bagged a brace, just outside the penalty area, Maddison stepped and scored a delightful free-kick to put the gloss on an excellent second-half performance. Exactly as they did against West Ham two weeks prior, Spurs went behind early on, but blew away their opponents after the interval.
And in the dressing room at half-time Maddison has revealed that their ability to do exactly that was the message from Postecoglou. "The manager, at half-time he stayed so calm, because he knows we have got a chance to blow teams away in quick periods," he told The Mirror.
"Even 1-0 down, he's just like; 'Get your heads up'. We know we can go and score four goals in a half against any team because that's what we do with our intensity. Thankfully that's exactly what we did. We blew them away."
Despite scoring, Maddison was understandably not overly pleased at being left out of their starting XI - with that feeling perhaps shown when he was greeted by Postecoglou after the final whistle.
As the Tottenham manager exchanged a quick hug with Maddison, he also spoke a few words of encouragement in his ear. However, images and videos which emerged since have shown the 27-year-old was not quite engaged in what he was being told.
Despite that, it's very clear that Maddison holds no ill-feelings especially judging by his social media activity after their victory. While also posting numerous clips of his goal from different angles, he captioned an Instagram story, "three point lane...." with a pop-up included which shows a women shaking her finger from side to side.
That message appears to be a subtle dig at Villa after they had won on their last two league visits to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with a social media post, soon after their second win, captioned: "three point lane."
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