ESPN pundit admits £40m player was in the middle of everything good Tottenham did yesterday.

Ange Postecoglou ended up facing one of the toughest tasks of his short Tottenham career yesterday.

He would have been praying that his side wasn’t left rueing the early opportunities they missed in the first ten minutes.

When Yves Bissouma was sent off, it wasn’t a surprise to see Richarlison substituted to bring on Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.

Luton grew into the game but were hit with a sucker punch early in the second half.

They were caught off guard by a quickly taken Dejan Kulusevski corner that was eventually converted by Micky Van de Ven for his first Spurs goal.

Unsurprisingly, James Maddison was involved for Tottenham as his pinpoint pass sliced open Luton’s defence to find the young Dutchman.

The England international is going from strength to strength for Spurs right now and is arguably playing the best football of his career.

His move to North London already looks like the best choice he could have made in the summer.

Maddison stars for Tottenham vs. Luton

Speaking about Tottenham’s victory, Nicol said: “They should have been two or three up before [Yves] Bissouma gets sent off for two stupid yellow cards.

“And then of course at 0-0 the pressure’s on and but for some poor finishing from Brentford [Luton Town], they managed to not only hang on and keep a clean sheet, but they actually got themselves forward.

“And no surprise [James] Maddison was in the middle of it and he lays the ball back for [Micky] Van de Ven to put the ball in the net for a goal and they end up winning 1-0.”

Maddison has been brilliant and proved against Luton yesterday why he’s arguably Tottenham’s most important player right now.

His fitness has been a slight concern in recent weeks and once again he didn’t see out yesterday’s match although that was very much a tactical change by Postecoglou.

He’s been described as ‘world class’ by Spurs legend Ramon Vega and right now it’s hard to disagree.