Two key Tottenham Hotspur starters have been accused of lacking toughness after being bullied during the hugely disappointing loss at an impressive Leeds United on Saturday.

Spurs’ three-match winning run came to an abrupt halt at Elland Road, as Roberto De Zerbi’s men produced a limpless second-half display in crashing to a 1-0 defeat.

While the attack has struggled throughout the first quarter of the campaign, Tottenham’s defence has been largely fairly solid, conceding just 11 goals in 10 games.

The Dutch pairing of skipper Micky van de Ven and Jan Paul van Hecke have been De Zerbi’s first-choice centre-back pairing, with the latter earning rave reviews of late after a tricky start to his Spurs career following his £52million switch from Brighton.

However, Van de Ven, who Tottenham spent £43m on in 2023, and Van Hecke were all at sea druing the second-half at Elland Road, with Leeds frontman Dominic Calvert-Lewin causing them all sorts of problems.

And former Spurs scout Bryan King believes that Van Hecke is no Bobby Moore or Stuart Pearce, as some fans have suggested, and questioned whether the newcomer is actually good enough defensively.

Tottenham defensive duo slammed

King told Football Insider: “I thought they [Leeds] looked a far better side than what Tottenham did. They should definitely have won by at least three goals.

“Everybody’s raving over the boy Van Hecke. I’m seeing people saying that he’s in the same mould as Bobby Moore and Stuart Pearce. Yeah, alright. I think we’ll leave that where it is.

“The pair of them [Van Hecke and Van de Ven] haven’t got nowhere near the kind of steel that they had. The boy, [Dominic] Calvert-Lewin, he could have had a hat-trick. They were only fortunate that he never hit the target.”

The Dutch pairing do have issues coping with bigger strikers who are strong in the air, while Van Hecke got the wrong side of Calvert-Lewin as he helped craft Leeds’ winning goal on Saturday.

It could be argued that fellow summer signings Marcos Senesi or Tosin would be a better fit alongside Van de Ven, given their aerial prowess, but De Zerbi will almost certainly be sticking with Van Hecke going forward – especially given that he was the main man behind signing the former Brighton star.

Spurs are back in action on November 21 when they host Ipswich Town in the Premier League before a trip to Sunderland eight days later.