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Mourinho: “We lost Eriksen to Inter intelligently by selling him for an important sum”

mawspurs

Staff
Jun 29, 2003
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Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho has admitted he is happy with the way the club dealt with the sale of Christian Eriksen.

Source: Sempreinter
 

Havre

Well-Known Member
Aug 8, 2019
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Looking forward to the books that might explain why we didn't sell him much sooner.
 

davidmatzdorf

Front Page Gadfly
Jun 7, 2004
18,106
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Looking forward to the books that might explain why we didn't sell him much sooner.
I think we know that. There was a limited number of clubs that Eriksen would move to - that represented anything like a step up for him.

None of them made an offer.
 

popstar7

Well-Known Member
Jan 14, 2012
3,036
9,367
Looking forward to the books that might explain why we didn't sell him much sooner.

Amazing that people can spend so much time here and still think clubs can just sell players when they feel like it. Doesn't work that way.

Also amazing that people can spend so much time here and think that selling your most valuable and sought after players at the time when they are most valuable and sought after will ever be a popular move with supporters.
 

Havre

Well-Known Member
Aug 8, 2019
829
1,065
Looking forward to the books that might explain why we didn't sell him much sooner.

Amazing that people can spend so much time here and still think clubs can just sell players when they feel like it. Doesn't work that way.

Also amazing that people can spend so much time here and think that selling your most valuable and sought after players at the time when they are most valuable and sought after will ever be a popular move with supporters.

Maybe not, but do you believe we tried to sell him last summer? He wasn't willing to sit out his last 5 months of his contract so maybe he would have been willing to be sold half a year ago as well?

The last paragraph makes no sense. Losing 30m to keep a lazy unmotivated Eriksen for half a season is the popular move? And my views are the "amazing" ones?

I never said it was easy, but if you had bothered to read the context my post is made in it is Mourinho giving Levy praise for getting anything for Eriksen. I don't find that such an "amazing" accomplishment.
 

McFlash

In the corner, eating crayons.
Oct 19, 2005
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Care to enlighten me?
We didn't sell him in the summer because only United showed interest. He didn't want to go there.

We wouldn't sell him before that because we no longer have to sell our best players, and were maybe under the impression that we could get him to sign a new contract still.

We sold him now because he realised that his dream move wasn't happening and he'd kind of painted himself into a corner.

It wasn't that complicated a situation.
 

dontcallme

SC Supporter
Mar 18, 2005
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81,904
We didn't sell him in the summer because only United showed interest. He didn't want to go there.

We wouldn't sell him before that because we no longer have to sell our best players, and were maybe under the impression that we could get him to sign a new contract still.

We sold him now because he realised that his dream move wasn't happening and he'd kind of painted himself into a corner.

It wasn't that complicated a situation.
Yeah but Levy wanted £30m when Utd wanted to pay £29m so the deal fell through. Think about this and not get scared: grown men actually believe that bollocks.
 

Havre

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Aug 8, 2019
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We didn't sell him in the summer because only United showed interest. He didn't want to go there.

We wouldn't sell him before that because we no longer have to sell our best players, and were maybe under the impression that we could get him to sign a new contract still.

We sold him now because he realised that his dream move wasn't happening and he'd kind of painted himself into a corner.

It wasn't that complicated a situation.

How do we know only United showed interest? And based on what price level? If we told clubs 80m then of course few would "show interest".

The second paragraph aligns with ITK through the window, but there was still time at the point Eriksen didn't sign. As for not selling that is just closing our eyes to reality. If we are going to $&÷^; away money so that we the fans can be let believe we are bigger than we are - then we are soon just another West Ham.

Complicated or not. I think it was a lot messier than you believe. I am quite sure we had many internal conversations over the summer how to deal with this. If your description is correct I certainly don't agree with Mourinho that Levy should be praised. If so he rescued a bad situation he partly created. Another thing for PR reasons of course it always makes sense for Mourinho to praise his boss. And now if fans are buying it then all the better.

And I'm not a Levy hater. I believe he has been brilliant for the club, but this one I think he handled poorly.
 

UbeAstard

Well-Known Member
May 31, 2005
3,354
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''Mourinho is widely regarded as one of the best managers this century having won trophies everywhere he has gone from league titles to cups to continental honours. ''

Working with one of the best and most sensible chairman in the league.
 

SirHarryHotspur

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2017
4,999
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We got more for Eriksen than The Woolwich did for Ramsey that must get us some extra brownie points.
 

Japhet

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Aug 30, 2010
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IMO, Eriksen hung on til the end of the Summer window expecting RM or Barca to snap him up. For that reason and probably a fair bit of loyalty to our fans, he wasn't at all interested in Man Utd. When Inter came in for him in January and there as still zero interest from Spain, it became the only viable option for him since the fans were getting on his case. Levy somehow managed to squeeze 17m out of it when I thought he'd be lucky to get 10.
 

dontcallme

SC Supporter
Mar 18, 2005
33,985
81,904
IMO, Eriksen hung on til the end of the Summer window expecting RM or Barca to snap him up. For that reason and probably a fair bit of loyalty to our fans, he wasn't at all interested in Man Utd. When Inter came in for him in January and there as still zero interest from Spain, it became the only viable option for him since the fans were getting on his case. Levy somehow managed to squeeze 17m out of it when I thought he'd be lucky to get 10.
Go back to the summer of 2018 and Eriksen was on a high. He'd performed consistently to a high standard and was one of the highest chance creators in Europe. His performances at international level was very good as well.

But he wasn't at the elite level that a Barca or Real Madrid would want. Barca had bought Coutinho and showed no known interest in Eriksen.

It seemed he needed another season at a high level to get to that level of interest from an elite club. But then he got the stomach injury and had a poor season. Last summer no significant interest was there from clubs genuinely above us. It seemed his best bet to get a move to a bigger club was at a reduced fee in the January window with his contract winding down or for a free in the summer.

I believe there is a lot of rewriting of history on here with regards to Eriksen not moving sooner. I don't remember anyone wanting us to cash in the summer of 2018.

It is only now that he didn't get the interest from the bigger clubs that the mostly anti-Levy fans are criticising us for not selling earlier.
 
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Havre

Well-Known Member
Aug 8, 2019
829
1,065
IMO, Eriksen hung on til the end of the Summer window expecting RM or Barca to snap him up. For that reason and probably a fair bit of loyalty to our fans, he wasn't at all interested in Man Utd. When Inter came in for him in January and there as still zero interest from Spain, it became the only viable option for him since the fans were getting on his case. Levy somehow managed to squeeze 17m out of it when I thought he'd be lucky to get 10.

I don't disagree that is the most likely description of events. Still would be interesting to me to hear some reflections from Pochettino, Eriksen etc on what their thought process was throughout. If I remember some ITK correctly our view was that Eriksen played us.

Find it a bit funny that I am told this is all known when it clearly isn't. In any case since this is so obvious I am happy to see that we will never again complain about Levy only thinking about money - he then clearly isn't.
 

benny

Well-Known Member
Jun 14, 2012
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Since he was free to negotiate a pre-contract we can assume that Real Madrid & Barca didn't show enough interest in him, so he looked at other options rather than gamble on leaving it until the summer.

I think we got lucky in that Inter are currently challenging Juve for the title, have a manager with recent Premier league experience, and are missing a few key players, so they were very keen to have him now rather than in the summer. In addition, Mourinho, a former Inter manager who has maintained a good relationship with that club, may have helped the deal go ahead.
 

Japhet

Well-Known Member
Aug 30, 2010
19,232
57,388
I don't disagree that is the most likely description of events. Still would be interesting to me to hear some reflections from Pochettino, Eriksen etc on what their thought process was throughout. If I remember some ITK correctly our view was that Eriksen played us.

Find it a bit funny that I am told this is all known when it clearly isn't. In any case since this is so obvious I am happy to see that we will never again complain about Levy only thinking about money - he then clearly isn't.

I think the only way he might have played us was when he said he'd be OK signing another deal with us if his dream move didn't come off. I personally, with the benefit of hindsight, don't think there was ever any chance of that.
 

McFlash

In the corner, eating crayons.
Oct 19, 2005
12,740
45,362
How do we know only United showed interest? And based on what price level? If we told clubs 80m then of course few would "show interest".

The second paragraph aligns with ITK through the window, but there was still time at the point Eriksen didn't sign. As for not selling that is just closing our eyes to reality. If we are going to $&÷^; away money so that we the fans can be let believe we are bigger than we are - then we are soon just another West Ham.

Complicated or not. I think it was a lot messier than you believe. I am quite sure we had many internal conversations over the summer how to deal with this. If your description is correct I certainly don't agree with Mourinho that Levy should be praised. If so he rescued a bad situation he partly created. Another thing for PR reasons of course it always makes sense for Mourinho to praise his boss. And now if fans are buying it then all the better.

And I'm not a Levy hater. I believe he has been brilliant for the club, but this one I think he handled poorly.
We, as fans, don't really 'know' anything.
All we can do is come to our own conclusions based on the information we have.
It's all about opinions and ours differ on this matter. That's fair enough.
 
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