Tottenham fans will remember the summer of 2013, and not for good reason. After the club narrowly missed out on a UEFA Champions League place at the hands of rivals Arsenal, the start of a painfully long saga involving their star man Gareth Bale soon followed. The Welshman was eventually sold to Real Madrid for a world-record £86 million after months of negotiations.
The Importance of Christian Eriksen at Tottenham
The task of re-investing that large amount of money into the team, however, proved even more painstaking. Instead of splashing out on a like-for-like replacement for Bale, manager Andre Villas-Boas instead went for quantity rather than proven quality, and with that brought uncertainty at the club’s transfer policy.
In came Erik Lamela, Roberto Soldado, Paulinho, Christian Eriksen, Etienne Capoue, Nacer Chadli and Vlad Chiriches. Over £100 million was spent, and it seemed to be a naive ploy. Fast forward to 2017, and that particular notion proved to be true. Only Lamela and Eriksen now remain at the club.
Lamela may have shown glimpses of his talent, but now finds himself on the fringes once again under Mauricio Pochettino. Though the same can’t be said for Eriksen, whose current importance to the Tottenham cause has arguably never been greater.
Eriksen was perhaps the only one of the plethora of summer signings to show real signs of consistency in quality so early on. The Dane’s first league season saw him score seven goals and provide eight assists, and while those assists decreased during the next campaign, Eriksen’s form in front of goal improved, scoring ten league goals for the first time in his career.
In addition, only Mesut Ozil made more assists last season than Eriksen (13), who also found the net six times. Along with the emergence of Dele Alli, Eriksen played a pivotal role in Spurs’ title push during the second half of last season, with his creativity becoming more influential in his side’s attacking play.
Yet despite the great impression that Eriksen gave in his first three seasons, it is this campaign that is set to be his best yet. With 11 games to go, the 25-year-old already has six goals to his name, along with ten assists, of which only Glyfi Sigurdsson (11) has more. Eriksen seems to have matured into a real matchwinner for Spurs, and a further look into the stats underline his undoubted importance.
No player in the Premier League has created more chances this season than Eriksen (79) and, furthermore, the Dane’s recent red-hot form has seen him directly involved in ten goals in his last six games across all competitions (3 goals & 7 assists). He is currently a man at the peak of his powers.
Tottenham’s new 3-4-2-1 system, under the guidance of Mauricio Pochettino, has seen Eriksen been given a greater freedom to express himself in the attack. In previous seasons, he was limited to a role out wide in order to accommodate the emerging Alli. Now, in combination with Alli just behind Harry Kane, Spurs seem to have found the right attacking balance to go with their well-known defensive solidarity.
“Eriksen does not give you everything that Hazard would, but he and Dele Alli have just started to get their almost telepathic understanding with Harry Kane going again,” wrote Jermain Jenas in a BBC column in January. “The way those three link up is a good example of why Spurs are doing so well, and all over the pitch they have units or partnerships that have the same sort of understanding.”
On Sunday against Southampton, it was Eriksen’s virtuoso display that gave Tottenham fans hope that their side can cope without the injured Kane. The attacking midfielder created the joint-most chances in the match (2), made the most crosses (2) and provided the individual moment of brilliance needed for Tottenham to break the deadlock, intuitively finding space before curling a precise left-foot shot into the bottom corner from outside the area.
The goal not only emphasised Eriksen’s improvement to produce moments of such quality on a more frequent basis, but also showed his underrated ambidextrous abilities. Five of his last six Premier League goals have been scored with his supposed weaker left foot. It is perhaps a unique quality that sets him apart from the league’s other creative stars, such as Mesut Ozil, Kevin De Bruyne and Philippe Coutinho, to name a few.
Eriksen has also worked on his strength and fitness, thanks to gym sessions made compulsory by Pochettino, in order to improve his game under the new system. “The body mass is going a little bit up, and the body fat has gone down a little bit. So I’m in very good shape,” he revealed during an interview with the Telegraph’s Jonathan Liew in late December. “I’ve always been a runner. But the power, the aggression that he (Pochettino) really likes – that’s probably changed a bit.”
Due to the scintillating recent form of both Kane and Alli over the past year, Eriksen has not received the adulation he has perhaps deserved. However, with Kane on the sidelines, that long-awaited praise could soon be around the corner as his influence not only refuses to wane, but is now growing stronger.
And that is Christian Eriksen. He may not grab the headlines, but his creativity has fast become the heartbeat of Tottenham’s attacking play. And for all the money Spurs wasted in 2013, Eriksen has proven that that summer, for all its setbacks, may not have been such a disaster after all.
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