Yves Bissouma
Born: 30 August 1996 (Issia, Ivory Coast)
Player Season Stats
Yves Bissouma signed from Brighton & Hove Albion in June, 2022, agreeing a deal that will run until 2026.
After a tricky first campaign, we saw the best of the Mali international midfielder under Ange Postecoglou's new system at the start of 2023/24, when he starred alongside Pape Sarr and James Maddison as we won eight of our first 10 matches to top the Premier League.
However, Yves' season was interrupted by red cards at Luton in October and then Forest in December, and he then travelled to AFCON with Mali in January/February, 2024, his country reaching the quarter-finals.
Yves finished the season strongly, taking his appearance tally to 28, all in the Premier League, starting 26.
A dynamic midfielder, Yves began his youth career at Majestic SC before joining Malian outfit AS Real Bamako and in March, 2016, headed to France to join Lille OSC, making 55 senior appearances for Les Dogues, scoring four goals.
In July, 2018, he signed for Brighton, making his debut the following month and registering his first league goal in July, 2020, a strike which was nominated for the Premier League’s Goal of the Month award.
Across four seasons with the Seagulls, Yves made 123 appearances in all competitions, scoring six goals and in the 2021/22 season helped them to ninth place in the Premier League, the highest top-flight finish in the club’s history.
Unfortunately, injuries and the form of the Rodrigo Bentancur-Pierre Emile-Hojbjerg partnership would play their part in Yves' first season as a Spurs player, restricting the midfielder to 28 appearances in our 50 matches in all competitions, including 12 starts.
Making his debut off the bench against Southampton on the opening day, Yves made his first start in the 1-1 draw at West Ham in August. He had started to feature more towards the break for the World Cup in November, and was in the line-up for the first matches of the Premier League's return at Brentford and Villa, but an ankle injury sustained against City on 5 February kept him out for three months before he returned for our final three matches.
On the international stage, he represents Mali, scoring on three occasions since making his senior debut in October, 2015. The following year, he played at the Africa Cup of Nations, netting the decisive goal to seal his team’s place in the final, where they would eventually finish as runners-up. Yves was again called up by Mali ahead of the rescheduled Africa Cup of Nations which took place in 2022. At the end of 2022/23, Yves had earned 37 caps for Mali.
