Player watch: Christian Eriksen

[Gilzeanking]

This in Guardian saying Eriksen's Agent and Levy have badly fallen out and aren't speaking...

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/27/tottenham-uncertain-christian-eriksen-intentions

 

[doctor stefan Freud]

This in Guardian saying Eriksen's Agent and Levy have badly fallen out and aren't speaking...

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/27/tottenham-uncertain-christian-eriksen-intentions

Shouldn’t surprise anyone- given the ITK on Eriksen’s behaviour during this window, I’d be pissed off too

 

[Metalhead]

Shouldn’t surprise anyone- given the ITK on Eriksen’s behaviour during this window, I’d be pissed off too

Sounds to me like this has all been set up for him to become a free agent next summer. Poch needs to decide whether he's going to have to make the best of it and start him or completely drop him from the team. This subs bench routine isn't working.

 

[Japhet]

This in Guardian saying Eriksen's Agent and Levy have badly fallen out and aren't speaking...

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/27/tottenham-uncertain-christian-eriksen-intentions

There's nothing in the article to substantiate the claim that there's been any falling out. It's just a repeat of what we all know with a bit of guesswork chucked in for good measure.

 

[iddebu52]

There's nothing in the article to substantiate the claim that there's been any falling out. It's just a repeat of what we all know with a bit of guesswork chucked in for good measure.

What's not new in this twisted article by these pissed tabloids! That's old news rehashed to click on!!! Move on, Poch will do what's right.

 

[Gilzeanking]

What's not new in this twisted article by these pissed tabloids! That's old news rehashed to click on!!! Move on, Poch will do what's right.

Guardian..tabloid ? Hytner their Spurs expert ?

 

[doctor stefan Freud]

Sounds to me like this has all been set up for him to become a free agent next summer. Poch needs to decide whether he's going to have to make the best of it and start him or completely drop him from the team. This subs bench routine isn't working.

All or nothing

 

[Archibald-CPH]

This in Guardian saying Eriksen's Agent and Levy have badly fallen out and aren't speaking...

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/27/tottenham-uncertain-christian-eriksen-intentions

I posted this on august 6 2019:

This should be ITK eventhough it is some time ago. Nearly from the horses mouth.

Evren Sihan and Bayram Tutumlu made a deal for CE to Barcelona for some time ago. Martin Schoots fucked that one up. Levy and Schoots should not get along that well after that.

Pinch of salt and all that

 

[Tiffers]

fair play - will delete.
think i have been aggravated by the whole bloomin beginning of the end thread

No problem, it's just such a worrying and stressful time for us fans seeing all the good work done over the last few years being thrown away.

 

[spursfan77]

I posted this on august 6 2019:

This should be ITK eventhough it is some time ago. Nearly from the horses mouth.

Evren Sihan and Bayram Tutumlu made a deal for CE to Barcelona for some time ago. Martin Schoots fucked that one up. Levy and Schoots should not get along that well after that.

Pinch of salt and all that

I thought Barcelona was Eriksen's actual dream destination after us. I cant imagine him being that happy with his agent over that then.

 

[TropicalYid]

If its so that hes been behaving in a bad way I would slowly begin the process with not using him in the starting line ups. Everyone can see we need a player of his quality, but when Lo Celso starts getting better integrated and Poch can figure out whats wrong with us and improve it, i would leave CE more and more on the bench, then out of the match day squads. Let him just train for the last 6 months of his contract.
We bought him cheap, hes been excellent and Levy would just have to take that loss.

 

[JCRD]

If its so that hes been behaving in a bad way I would slowly begin the process with not using him in the starting line ups. Everyone can see we need a player of his quality, but when Lo Celso starts getting better integrated and Poch can figure out whats wrong with us and improve it, i would leave CE more and more on the bench, then out of the match day squads. Let him just train for the last 6 months of his contract.
We bought him cheap, hes been excellent and Levy would just have to take that loss.

If we are going to do that - you may as well just give him away and save the wages etc.

 

[Hotspurious]

well done on getting out there for that many games! Haven't been since WHL but taking a trip home next year and will be taking the fam to the NWHL!

Shouldn’t you all’s name be MDSpur? ;-)

 

[ardiles]

If its so that hes been behaving in a bad way I would slowly begin the process with not using him in the starting line ups. Everyone can see we need a player of his quality, but when Lo Celso starts getting better integrated and Poch can figure out whats wrong with us and improve it, i would leave CE more and more on the bench, then out of the match day squads. Let him just train for the last 6 months of his contract.
We bought him cheap, hes been excellent and Levy would just have to take that loss.

Why would we need to do that?

As long as he is still our player, and getting paid by the club and is useful enough for the team, then I don’t see any reason for him to be treated this way.

He didn’t have to a sign a contract with us, all those years ago but he did. His current contract is almost over and it is within his right not to sign a new one with us. He hasn’t thrown a strop just because he couldn’t (yet) leave during this TW. If he wants to play for a bigger club, that’s his prerogative. We are fans, but not all players are lifelong fans of the clubs that they play for. They have different ambitions .

He may not have been at his best in recent times, but he isn’t our only player that’s not been at their best recently.

If we drop him, when we could really use his services, then it would be to our detriment, not his.

 

[nickspurs]

With the current trend for players to run down contracts, clubs have problems with losing valuable assets for free. That said, the players are under no obligation to sign new contracts and, in Eriksen’s case, have been a very good investment based on the price we paid originally.

I see lots of arguments on can we handle Eriksen but one angle people tend to ignore is the precedent that gets set. In the event no satisfactory bid comes in we could give him the ultimatum to sign a new deal or he won’t get picked for match day squads for the rest of the season.

Now, you have to be comfortable enough that missing out on the services of a (very good) player on your books is worth the signal it sends to everyone else. It makes them think twice about holding out for that lucrative move on a free if they are facing many months of no game time and risk the other club getting put off.

If it’s just down to Eriksen then my personal view is that the risk of missing out on top 4 by freezing him out is too great. We should just suck it up and make the best of a bad situation by playing him and let him go on a free in the summer. But if I’m Levy, and my job is to protect the longer term interests, then I should consider setting a precedent here.

I guess the final point is that you also have a manager or coach whose time frame is inevitably shorter than Levy’s. “Provided I can get Eriksen’s head straight, of course I want to use him in the team!”

You’d need to have a very strict club policy on this approach to ‘contract-runners-down’ and have a very clear understanding between the chairman and manager that this is the signal to send to players thinking about running contracts down. You then need to follow through on the threat to not play them.

Anyway, a broader club perspective offered here. As I say, I think that given where we are, we just have to use Eriksen the best we can for the rest of the season should we not get a satisfactory bid in the next few days. And yes, it sucks.

 

[rossdapep]

Got to imagine Kane won't be too happy Eriksen has been on the bench. He knows how important he is to his game and getting goals. Wouldnt be surprised if the Eriksen situation is causing issues because players want him on the pitch rather than players are unhappy with him.

 

[Tiffers]

CE holds all the cards and the club loses whichever way it chooses to handle CE over the coming season.

Assuming no one comes in for him in the next few days spurs can reintroduce him in to the first team and accept that he will leave on a free transfer next summer. This would be a financial loss to the club but it would benefit the on field performance of the team.

Alternatively, Poch could be bloody minded and leave him out of the team which would upset the rest of the squad, the on field performance could suffer and we lose him in a free anyway next summer.

This second alternative means everyone loses and has to be avoided at all cost.

Poch needs to accept that CE holds all the cards and make the best of the situation.

 

[soflapaul]

I, like most, have struggled with the CE situation. He has been a first class servant to the club and one of the top two or three players we've had in the last several years. He appears to have handled this professionally for the most part and has earned the right to run out his contract if that is what he plans on doing. After all, he is still honoring the contract. The question (which i don't have a clue as to the answer) is which impacts the team's attitude and performance the most - Having him but not "all in" or having him at whatever level of commitment he is at. If his disbelief in "the project" is creating disbelief in the others then that is a massive problem in the Poch system. we don't know what we don't know and trying to figure it out from the outside is impossible. What is clear is that the performance on the pitch has fallen well below both reasonable and unreasonable expectations that we Spurs fans seem to have. And it isn't clear if there is a solution in the near term future. Poch still has money in the bank but he burning thru it faster than i would have ever thought possible.

 

[Japhet]

With the current trend for players to run down contracts, clubs have problems with losing valuable assets for free. That said, the players are under no obligation to sign new contracts and, in Eriksen’s case, have been a very good investment based on the price we paid originally.

I see lots of arguments on can we handle Eriksen but one angle people tend to ignore is the precedent that gets set. In the event no satisfactory bid comes in we could give him the ultimatum to sign a new deal or he won’t get picked for match day squads for the rest of the season.

Now, you have to be comfortable enough that missing out on the services of a (very good) player on your books is worth the signal it sends to everyone else. It makes them think twice about holding out for that lucrative move on a free if they are facing many months of no game time and risk the other club getting put off.

If it’s just down to Eriksen then my personal view is that the risk of missing out on top 4 by freezing him out is too great. We should just suck it up and make the best of a bad situation by playing him and let him go on a free in the summer. But if I’m Levy, and my job is to protect the longer term interests, then I should consider setting a precedent here.

I guess the final point is that you also have a manager or coach whose time frame is inevitably shorter than Levy’s. “Provided I can get Eriksen’s head straight, of course I want to use him in the team!”

You’d need to have a very strict club policy on this approach to ‘contract-runners-down’ and have a very clear understanding between the chairman and manager that this is the signal to send to players thinking about running contracts down. You then need to follow through on the threat to not play them.

Anyway, a broader club perspective offered here. As I say, I think that given where we are, we just have to use Eriksen the best we can for the rest of the season should we not get a satisfactory bid in the next few days. And yes, it sucks.

I agree with what you say, but it's very difficult to be that hard on Eriksen when Poch has been publicly flashing his knickers at RM over the same period of time. It would smack of double standards for Poch to stick Eriksen on the bench under the circumstances. Poch's bizarre comments have effectively chucked away any moral high ground he had in negotiations with players for a gain of precisely fuck all.

 

[Cochraam]

With the current trend for players to run down contracts, clubs have problems with losing valuable assets for free. That said, the players are under no obligation to sign new contracts and, in Eriksen’s case, have been a very good investment based on the price we paid originally.

I see lots of arguments on can we handle Eriksen but one angle people tend to ignore is the precedent that gets set. In the event no satisfactory bid comes in we could give him the ultimatum to sign a new deal or he won’t get picked for match day squads for the rest of the season.

Now, you have to be comfortable enough that missing out on the services of a (very good) player on your books is worth the signal it sends to everyone else. It makes them think twice about holding out for that lucrative move on a free if they are facing many months of no game time and risk the other club getting put off.

If it’s just down to Eriksen then my personal view is that the risk of missing out on top 4 by freezing him out is too great. We should just suck it up and make the best of a bad situation by playing him and let him go on a free in the summer. But if I’m Levy, and my job is to protect the longer term interests, then I should consider setting a precedent here.

I guess the final point is that you also have a manager or coach whose time frame is inevitably shorter than Levy’s. “Provided I can get Eriksen’s head straight, of course I want to use him in the team!”

You’d need to have a very strict club policy on this approach to ‘contract-runners-down’ and have a very clear understanding between the chairman and manager that this is the signal to send to players thinking about running contracts down. You then need to follow through on the threat to not play them.

Anyway, a broader club perspective offered here. As I say, I think that given where we are, we just have to use Eriksen the best we can for the rest of the season should we not get a satisfactory bid in the next few days. And yes, it sucks.

I agree with a lot of this, and I do think we'll see more and more players running down their contracts because it weights a lot of financial benefits in favor of the player, even if it does entail some additional risk. I want to play devil's advocate to the idea of creating a strict "no playing in final year" policy to discourage players running down their contracts.

1) It doesn't really account for older players who are meant to run down their contracts... e.g., I don't think we were ever going to receive a fee for Vorm or Llorente, so the way we (and they) end their contracts is to see them out.
2) The main idea of refusing to use players running down their contract is financial protection, but it really only protects the transfer fee part. It seems like bad financial management to effectively have the final year of all contracts be dead weight. We often have players on 4-5 year deals, so we would kind of saying 20-25% of that contract is dead weight - we'll pay you but not use you for 20-25% of the life of the contract (should it come to that).
3) I also think it could set a bad precedent for future transfers because it's a pretty antagonistic move. I wouldn't want to sign for a club that could see me sit out a year for reasons that might not have anything to do with on-field performance. For players considering several relatively similar offers, a strict policy like this may be what tilts things in favor of signing with another club.
4) I also think it could unsettle the squad every bit as much as the uncertainty of players winding down their contracts. I would expect a frozen out player to be pretty unhappy, and that could translate to friends within the squad. In CE's case, I could see someone like Kane being pretty unhappy if he ends up starved for service a few games knowing the club is paying but refusing to play the person who has provided the most assists for Kane's goals.

Anyway, I think it's a tricky situation and financially disadvantageous for the club, but I also don't think freezing out players is really the solution. I think you play all players with a current contract (assuming they're not causing squad disharmony and are performing up to snuff in training and during games... a whole separate set of issues). We've mostly done a good job of keeping key players on extended contracts.