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Here's another negative Jan Vertonghen report

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Julian Finney

Jan Vertonghen isn't Tottenham Hotspur's captain or one of their vice captains. A lot of fans were very unhappy with this when the decision was made, with some even suggesting that it made them skeptical about Mauricio Pochettino. But Matt Law of the Telegraph is here to tell you that it wasn't all MoPo -- Jan's fellow players don't think he's captain material.

Telegraph Sport, however, understands that Pochettino did not come to the decision to omit central defender Vertonghen from his list of captains alone.

Having only taken over the Spurs squad in the summer, Pochettino canvassed the opinion of his players on who would be best captain and vice captains.

Vertonghen did little to hide his displeasure under previous head coach Tim Sherwood, which may have helped convince his team-mates that he is not captain material.

Okay, so people who really like Jan Vertonghen and who read about this kind of stuff daily probably had one of two negative reactions to this, if not both at the same time. They are "typical media trying to stir the pot" and "garbage article with no quotes", which, okay. Two pretty reasonable reactions we're conditioned to have to stuff like this.

So, point one: The Telegraph seems less awful about stirring the pot for the sake of stirring the pot than other outlets. That doesn't mean they've never done it, but I don't think anyone is sitting around at their offices going "how do we screw with Tottenham today!" Law also writes plenty of positive things about Tottenham.

Point two: Of course there are no player quotes, Vertonghen still plays for Spurs. It would be a really bad idea for anyone to tell Law on the record that they thought Vertonghen's attitude doesn't make him captain material. However, if you go backwards and do a scan through some of the rumor stuff Law wrote over the summer, he doesn't have a terrific record. He's not exactly a guy who's earned a rep that would lead us to believe that he has ironclad sources.

But the evidence continues to mount that Vertonghen has kind of a crappy attitude, which is unfortunate, because he's obviously a brilliant player. Here's to hoping he's been misrepresented ... again.