- Spurs have suspended Yves Bissouma for Monday’s Premier League opener
- This comes after footage emerged showing the midfielder inhaling laughing gas
- Get the latest Premier League news straight to your phone at Mail Sport’s new WhatsApp channel
Ange Postecoglou has dropped midfielder Yves Bissouma for Tottenham’s opening game of the season after video footage emerged showing the midfielder inhaling laughing gas.
Spurs manager Postecoglou said Bissouma had made “a very bad decision” and must now learn from his mistake to regain the trust of his manager and team-mates.
“I’ve been in the game for a long time and every time a situation like this comes up I’ve tried to look at it in a couple of different ways,” the Australian said. “One of them is that there’s a person involved and in this case it’s Biss and he’s made a really bad decision.
“You want to understand that and help him through it. What can we do as a club to ensure he doesn’t make those kinds of choices in the future?
‘Within that context there are still sanctions, including education and making it clearer to him how wrong it was.
Ange Postecoglou (pictured right) confirms Tottenham have ‘suspended’ ‘Yves Bissouma’ (pictured left) for Monday’s match against Leicester
Bissouma enters his third season at the North London club, having made 56 appearances for the club in total
Postecoglou has also said that Bissouma must regain the trust of the Spurs group
‘I always want to give people the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.’
Bissouma apologized in a statement for his “serious lack of judgment” after sharing a video on social media showing him inhaling laughing gas – a Class C drug also known as hippie crack – through a balloon.
Spurs announced earlier this week that they had launched an internal investigation and Postecoglou confirmed on Thursday that the 27-year-old will miss Monday’s opening game of the season against Leicester City as punishment.
The former Celtic manager said Bissouma must now focus on improving himself and building bridges at Spurs.
“He has responsibilities to the club, his team-mates, our supporters and everyone associated with the club,” Postecoglou said. “He failed in those duties, so there must be sanctions.
Possession of laughing gas with the intention of using it recreationally was made illegal in the UK last year. Laughing gas, also known as ‘hippy crack’, comes in canisters that can be super-sized
In November, the law was changed to make laughing gas a controlled class C drug. Possession for inhalation is now considered a criminal offence, but a conviction is unlikely
“We suspended him for Monday’s game and then there’s also some trust that needs to be built up between Biss and me and Biss and the group. He’s got to work hard from now on to regain that trust.
“The door is open for him and hopefully we can help him realize that the decisions he makes don’t just affect him.”
Bissouma was a regular starter for Postecoglou last season. The Mali midfielder has made 56 appearances for Spurs since joining from Brighton two years ago.