Tottenham Hotspur Link: Christian Eriksen Happy to Remain with Spurs, Wants to Return as No. 10
Christian Eriksen has held talks with Mauricio Pochettino over his role with the club, but is still happy to remain with Tottenham.
According to the London Evening Standard — or Standard Sport, they’re the same thing — Christian Eriksen has held talks with Mauricio Pochettino over his role with the club, but is still happy to remain with Tottenham.
There’s no worry here whatsoever. This isn’t Christian Eriksen requesting a transfer because of a lack of playing time at his preferred position. Instead the Danish international wants to let Mauricio Pochettino know that he plays much better inside at the number 10 role, behind Harry Kane, than outside on the left flank.
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Which makes sense, considering that’s what the Dane was signed for in the first place when André Villas-Boas was still Tottenham manager.
As it stands, Eriksen will accept whatever instructions that Pochettino has for the 23-year-old. But he has let it be known that compared to Dele Alli, Mousa Dembélé and Son Heung-min or any other player who plays at central attacking mid, he’s able to offer more.
Most likely from a creative standpoint than say, ability-wise. Except, perhaps speed and athleticism is what the Argentine manger wants more from the number 10 spot than creativity, which might suggest why Alli, Dembélé and Son have had their fair share of starts behind Harry Kane.
When taking a look at Christian Eriksen’s Transfermarkt performance data for this season, it shows that the 23-year-old has made almost half of his 24 appearances at left midfield/wing with 10.
At attacking mid, Eriksen has made seven appearances. And for good measure, the Danish international has played 5 times on the right midfield/wing position.
So basically, Christian Eriksen has played all around the attacking three to show off how versatile he is but also how much he’s willing to sacrifice his preferred role as the main creative playmaker for the club, so that he can continue being a starter on Mauricio Pochettino’s starting eleven and help contribute.
With his contract running down in 2018 and teams being interested in Eriksen, the Danish international could fetch for some good money if he’s transfer listed. Of course, that’s not going to happen because Mauricio Pochettino said so.
“He [Christian Eriksen] has said he is happy and that he wants to stay. He is young and he knows he is important for us. He has a future with us.”
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Right now, that future is playing at a different position because it’s highly likely that Dele Alli will continue to play as Pochettino’s number 10 until his form dips badly — or worse, an injury happens.
When Alex Pritchard returns to full fitness and begins training with the first-team, this is when it gets more interesting. Does the 22-year-old enter into contention for the central attacking midfield position with Alli, Josh Onoman and even Eriksen?
It would make sense to see Mauricio Pochettino restart the competition at attacking mid once Tottenham gets healthy. As in, let Christian Eriksen, Dele Alli, Josh Onomah and Alex Pritchard all take turns on the training grounds — if they have time during training sessions to run a scrimmage — to see who is truly the perfect fit behind Harry Kane at attacking mid.
This way, the loser of the battle will be the first-choice backup and the other two will be starters in Tottenham’s other positions like left midfield (Josh Onomah) or central midfield (Dele Alli).
As a whole though, these talks with the manager can only benefit both Eriksen and the team itself. Looking back, during the summer when Tottenham had a garage sale at the central midfield position and Mousa Dembélé was a question mark to return, the Belgian held a personal talk with Pochettino about his role.
What came out of it is perhaps the 28-year-old’s best season in quite a while, ever since he first joined the club in 2012. Injuries aside, when fit, Dembélé is a starter. Even for Érik Lamela, while there were no player and coach talks between the two, it was apparent that Pochettino expected a big year for the Argentine winger, and Lamela has so far delivered this season.
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Following these talks between Christian Eriksen and Mauricio Pochettino, it’ll be hard to replace Dele Alli as the team’s number 10, but at the same time, the Danish midfielder could probably light a fire in his game even more and deliver some inspired performances against Sunderland on Saturday, Leicester City in the FA Cup replay tie and Crystal Palace to wrap up the month of January.
“Why not?” Pochettino said, when asked about Christian Eriksen’s goals scored this season compared to his first two years with Tottenham. “He is a talented player and we can only hope that he starts to score again.”
“This is a different season, we have a different style of play, he has different team-mates and sometimes it is about form. Sometimes different things happen in players’ lives.”