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Former Spurs manager Martin Jol has labelled Tottenham's midfield general Mousa Dembele as one of the best in the world in a recent interview with Volkskrant.

The Dutchman managed Dembele during his time at Fulham before selling the midfielder to Spurs for around £15m.

The 30-year-old has come on leaps and bounds since that move in 2012, with Graeme Souness recently revealing that most of the Tottenham squad view him as the club's top player.

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Jol has now added to the praise when talking to the Dutch news outlet, saying: ''Dembele was my best player. I wanted to take away the pressure of scoring. In England, a striker and a number 10 have to score, but Dembele was always asked to play further back.''

This is high praise for a player with fairly underwhelming stats going forward. The Belgian has played 230 times for the north London club and has only scored 10 goals. His assist tally of 11  does not make for much better reading either.

Despite this, Jol was full of praise for Dembele and when asked if there was anyone better in his role, the former Premier League manager gave a shocking reply.

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''Maybe Pogba or Vidal, but Mousa is better.''

Current Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino certainly agrees with these claims from Jol and drew some remarkable comparisons himself when discussing the box to box midfielder.

He supposedly regards the Belgian as being on the same level as the likes of Diego Maradona, Ronaldinho and Jay-Jay Okocha, which is a huge claim to say the least.