Spurs need more from Eriksen

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Denmark boss Morten Olsen was quoted this week as saying that Christian Eriksen needs to have more influence in the “brutal world” of international football. I also think he needs to have more influence for Spurs in the Premier League.

There’s no doubt that the Dane has a lot of talent. He’s got really good technique, nice balance and is a threat from set pieces. He also weighs in with a few goals. My main gripe with him is that he flits in and out of games rather than dominating them.

In many respects, he’s the belated replacement for Luka Modric – albeit playing further forward. I was disappointed to lose Modric but, of course, could see why he’d rather play for Real Madrid. At the time of his sale, though, I felt Modric didn’t quite do enough further up the pitch; as in scoring goals and directly setting up chances.

Now, though, I can see how much we miss the Croatian. He was always available and kept things ticking over. Eriksen, on the other hand, isn’t on the ball enough.

A lot of other clubs looked at Eriksen when he was at Ajax and the whisper why they didn’t go for him was that it was felt he rarely played well in the big games. He certainly didn’t for Spurs last season (neither did anyone else, mind) and so it’s high time that he did. Hopefully starting at Man City on Saturday.

At this stage in his Spurs career I would dub Eriksen as a ‘nice player’. But such players don’t help you win the tough games and so hopefully he’ll taken Morten Olsen’s words to heart and work on becoming a bigger player in games. The talent is there, it’s just the confidence and application. Eriksen needs to be a strutting cockerel, not a stuttering one.

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