Player watch: Christian Eriksen

[Havre]

I just fundamentally don't understand your logic. You keep talking about him "accepting" being sold as if we're trying to offload him but he's not budging, but that's the exact opposite of the current situation. We want to keep him but he wants to leave, preferably to Real Madrid. Unfortunately for him, he came out about it in public and then Real Madrid never came in for him and hung him out to dry. It's got nothing to do with him "accepting" being sold at all. If anything it's now about him accepting that he's here for another season and applying himself properly so that he attracts Madrid's attention next time around.

Not sure why you would have to add the adjective "fundamentally" as is there is a "fundamental" flaw in the logic.

Yes. I believe we should have tried to offload Eriksen this summer. That is fundamentally part of my thinking.

 

[coys200]

Amazed so many think Eriksen will get preference over Lo Celso. Obviously will depend on Lo Celso performances. But if he does well you really think Pochettino is gonna give preference to guy virtually out the door to a guy we are paying near on £60m for ?

 

[Pellshek]

It's weird to think that for almost my whole life as a football fan, transfers were a round-the-year business. Seems a million years ago. Not sure how it didn't drive us all crazy.

 

[Shadydan]

Amazed so many think Eriksen will get preference over Lo Celso. Obviously will depend on Lo Celso performances. But if he does well you really think Pochettino is gonna give preference to guy virtually out the door to a guy we are paying near on £60m for ?

I don't think the choice will be one or the other, why can't both play in the same team?

 

[Japhet]

Having thought about this more I think it's pretty bad news that he didn't get a move this summer, especially in light of the Football Manager comments which suggest to me that he is not interested in signing a new deal (I hope I'm wrong of course).

Despite being a quality player, him still being here causes us problems. If we play him we are potentially taking playing time away from a Dele, Lo Celso, Moura, Lamela or Son, players who have a longer commitment to the club. This has been said to have caused an issue in the squad dynamic already by multiple journos. On top of that Eriksen playing/not playing becomes the easy media narrative focus, I can see it being like a cloud over the season unless we go on a winning run, at least until Jan anyway.

I hope we can somehow convince him to stay and dispel all of this, but I just can't see it currently.

Eriksen has caused a problem for himself in all of this. By insisting that he'll only go to a club of his choice (RM or maybe Barca) he has effectively limited his own financial outcome. They may well feel they don't have to offer him much of a package since they have no competition for his services. That, IMO, leaves us in with a chance of offering a good enough package for him to sign a new deal with us but we won't know til the cards are on the table.

 

[TheHoddleWaddle]

Amazed so many think Eriksen will get preference over Lo Celso. Obviously will depend on Lo Celso performances. But if he does well you really think Pochettino is gonna give preference to guy virtually out the door to a guy we are paying near on £60m for ?

Succession planning is the key. So I tend to agree that the whole spurs set up will be planning for the longer term. Pochettino said LoCelso wasnt at the level he wanted yet. Which I assume is fitness levels? But it stands to reason that if Eriksen sees himself elsewhere when his contract expires, that he wont be played as often. It isn't as simple.as 'rotting on the bench', we still need to perform this season and he is a spurs employee and a good one who can turn a game. But I cant see him.getting as much game.time with a fully fit first team.at pochettinos disposal if he is on his way. The manager needs to have a cohesive side ongoing. But, stay or go, Eriksen will still get game time in my opinion. A season is a long time and none of this is personal unless each side makes it that way. Level & objective heads needed.

 

[iddebu52]

Amazed so many think Eriksen will get preference over Lo Celso. Obviously will depend on Lo Celso performances. But if he does well you really think Pochettino is gonna give preference to guy virtually out the door to a guy we are paying near on £60m for ?

Both will play.

 

[dagraham]

I don't think the choice will be one or the other, why can't both play in the same team?

Agree. Would make a pleasant change to have two creative midfielder both able to score goals in the team at the same time.

 

[coys200]

I don't think the choice will be one or the other, why can't both play in the same team?

Agree but you basically have Son Dele Eriksen Lo Celso Moura lamela Sessegnon fighting over 3 places. So if Eriksen and Lo Celso start it basically means one of Son or dele aren’t. Unless you drop either to CM then Sissoko or winks aren’t.

 

[Havre]

Agree but you basically have Son Dele Eriksen Lo Celso Moura lamela Sessegnon fighting over 3 places. So if Eriksen and Lo Celso start it basically means one of Son or dele aren’t. Unless you drop either to CM then Sissoko or winks aren’t.

Can't see Sessegnon playing that far up the pitch, but I agree with the general point.

One of the things that made us so good in 16/17 was the balance we had. Eriksen needs runners to play well. Alli is a runner, Son is a runner, Kane used to be, Lucas somewhat. Lo Celso is not. Neither is Lamela. If you play Eriksen and Lo Celso at the same time who are there to stretch the opposition's defense? Possible to go diamond of course with Eriksen and Lo Celso as no. 8s, but then there is no room for N'Dombele.

To me both Lo Celso and Eriksen are better players than Alli and maybe even Son, but both Alli and Son offers something different. Even Lucas. Lucas is in my opinion a clear level below in overall quality, but he has complementary qualities to Eriksen and Lo Celso.

 

['O Zio]

Not sure why you would have to add the adjective "fundamentally" as is there is a "fundamental" flaw in the logic.

Yes. I believe we should have tried to offload Eriksen this summer. That is fundamentally part of my thinking.

Because there is a fundamental flaw in your logic, which I pointed out in the post But here it is again:

Your entire argument is based on this idea that he needs to be persuaded to leave, when in actual fact he's the one trying to leave. Even if we were prepared to offload him in the summer, it's only as a result of him expressing his desire to leave anyway, so we're just cutting our losses so to speak.

 

[Havre]

Because there is a fundamental flaw in your logic, which I pointed out in the post But here it is again:

Your entire argument is based on this idea that he needs to be persuaded to leave, when in actual fact he's the one trying to leave.

Right. I don't know what to say.

Then there is no problem - we could have just sold him.

I guess flawed logic is better than no logic.

 

[Shadydan]

Agree but you basically have Son Dele Eriksen Lo Celso Moura lamela Sessegnon fighting over 3 places. So if Eriksen and Lo Celso start it basically means one of Son or dele aren’t. Unless you drop either to CM then Sissoko or winks aren’t.

Maybe so but I don't see a scenario whether Poch picks Eriksen or Lo Celso, it doesn't have to be one or the other because the two play in different positions, Lo Celso is versatile enough to play in 4 diff positions for example.

 

['O Zio]

Eriksen has caused a problem for himself in all of this. By insisting that he'll only go to a club of his choice (RM or maybe Barca) he has effectively limited his own financial outcome. They may well feel they don't have to offer him much of a package since they have no competition for his services. That, IMO, leaves us in with a chance of offering a good enough package for him to sign a new deal with us but we won't know til the cards are on the table.

I hope you're right. However, maybe that actually is an indication that it isn't just about money for him, it's about being able to tell his kids he played for Real Madrid or whatever. In which case it would presumably take a massive contract from us i.e. a deal he couldn't refuse to keep him. I guess we'll have to wait and see. To be honest at this stage I don't see any other outcome than him playing the rest of the year and hoping REal come in for him in January/next summer. Maybe if they don't come in for him again then he'll sign a new contract with us, but I don't see why he would until he's tested the waters of bosman.

 

['O Zio]

Right. I don't know what to say.

Then there is no problem - we could have just sold him.

I guess flawed logic is better than no logic.

Could've sold him to who? By all accounts he doesn't want to leave purely to get more money or whatever, he wants to leave because he has the ambition to play for Real Madrid. He was presumably under the impression that they were about to come in for him but then for whatever reason never did.

 

[Shadydan]

Eriksen has caused a problem for himself in all of this. By insisting that he'll only go to a club of his choice (RM or maybe Barca) he has effectively limited his own financial outcome. They may well feel they don't have to offer him much of a package since they have no competition for his services. That, IMO, leaves us in with a chance of offering a good enough package for him to sign a new deal with us but we won't know til the cards are on the table.

It's going to take some turnaround for Eriksen to sign with us, his head was already gone last year. Not sure if he has limited his financial income, he's a very good player and a free agent - there's gonna be a whole host of clubs throwing him money left right and centre and he can play them all off against each other. Ramsey negotiated a £400k a week contract with Juve - free players are just insanely attractive investments because they don't carry a risk so they can demand a premium.

 

[teedee]

Eriksen has caused a problem for himself in all of this. By insisting that he'll only go to a club of his choice (RM or maybe Barca) he has effectively limited his own financial outcome. They may well feel they don't have to offer him much of a package since they have no competition for his services. That, IMO, leaves us in with a chance of offering a good enough package for him to sign a new deal with us but we won't know til the cards are on the table.

Ha! I should have Eriksen's problems!

 

[Shadydan]

Could've sold him to who? By all accounts he doesn't want to leave purely to get more money or whatever, he wants to leave because he has the ambition to play for Real Madrid. He was presumably under the impression that they were about to come in for him but then for whatever reason never did.

Essentially we should have threatened him and forced him to sign a contract with someone else - that's what some people are saying, I don't know if he would have taken kindly to the gangster approach personally, can't see him being too pleased if Levy did the whole waterboard technique on him.

Seriously though this is what you call scapegoat culture - literally trying to find any possible angle to blame someone when in truth you just got to hold your hands up and say fair enough.

 

[nailsy]

Exactly. And what is the most likely scenario? Him staying or leaving at that point?

You cannot just represent one possible outcome and say that is my opinion.

I believe if that was made clear to him early he would have accepted being sold. 100% certainty? No. But I believe most people would agree the most likely outcome would be that he would accepted being sold. Would getting paid 300k at Utd be such a bad deal if the alternative was to basically sit out a season? Probably not. Is 300k at Utd a good deal if you can just keep on playing for Spurs for 1 year before moving somewhere else? Probably not.

Obviously no-one can know what the outcome would be or would have been. In my head it would have been close to 100% certainty Eriksen would have left at that point. Even at 80% I would have taken that gamble.

Now - if you were in charge and strongly believed Eriksen would stay even if he was told he would not be prioritized for this season - then of course alienating him would be rather pointless for any other reason than setting a precedence. Now I'm being told I'm an idiot for that as well of course. That such a precedence would make it more difficult to sign players. Again something that no-one can know for certain, but I fail to see how playing the players that are committed to the club would make it hard to sign new players. I would prefer signing players that want to play for Spurs rather than players primarily being concerned about what happens after Spurs.

There are two possible outcomes to your proposal - selling him, or having him rot in the reserves for a year. You're ignoring one of those outcomes because you think it's unlikely, but there's no way of knowing how the player will react to that situation. Adrien Rabiot had that dilemma at PSG last season and refused to move, was stuck in the reserves for six months and then signed for Juventus. It didn't really hurt him much.

Eriksen has refused to sign a contract extension and has been on much lower wages than many of his team mates for years because he wants to give himself the best opportunity of joining one of his dream clubs and win something. Would he agree to give up that dream to join a smaller club or a team less likely to win trophies? Who knows. Would Eriksen get his agent to speak to Barca & Real and see if they'd sign him on a free in a year in those circumstances? Almost certainly. There's also the possibility that Eriksen could exploit the Webster ruling and buy out the remainder of his contract for £4M if we told him he wouldn't play for the season.

Players leave on free transfers every season. Many of those players are just as committed on the pitch as they were in previous seasons. Lewandowski finished as the Bundesliga top scorer the season he announced that he was going to leave Dortmund to join Bayern. He even played against his new team in the cup final that season. You don't have to punish players just because they've decided that they want a change.

 

[teedee]

Essentially we should have threatened him and forced him to sign a contract with someone else - that's what some people are saying, I don't know if he would have taken kindly to the gangster approach personally, can't see him being too pleased if Levy did the whole waterboard technique on him.

Seriously though this is what you call scapegoat culture - literally trying to find any possible angle to blame someone when in truth you just got to hold your hands up and say fair enough.

I don't see why people are so upset about this. Yes, we are going to miss a player of his quality, but we have known for some time that he wasn't going to renew his contract. He has given Spurs great service during his time with us and never caused a problem. A player who is seldom injured and who works harder covering more ground in every game than most other players in the PL. If he should change his mind and stay with us, which is highly unlikely, then wonderful, but if he goes then I am grateful for his time with us and good luck to him.