He is a special player but not quite the finished article When he disappears from a game, boy do we suffer!
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He doesn't just disappear for 'a' game though, and this is the issue with him. He seems to vanish for months at a time. During the start of last season he was just 'okay' and then became great in Jan-Feb. This season he started slow, then had a good winter, now he's disappeared again.
His inconsistency is almost on the level of Adebayor.
Blimey, I wouldn't go that far!
Bollocks
sorry - but thats just crap
Todays Telegraph
By Jonathan Liew
In a parallel universe, Christian Eriksen will be stepping out at Wembley Stadium on Sunday afternoon wearing blue. There was a time when Eriksen could conceivably have joined Chelsea; he flew over from Denmark to have trials at Cobham when he was 14 and 15.
Instinctively, he felt uneasy. “I enjoyed myself during the trials, but it was too big a step at that time,” he says now. “It was so different from what I was used to in Denmark. In England you can’t enter the training ground without permission. Whereas in Denmark, you are free to go in.”
So on the advice of Frank Arnesen, Chelsea’s sporting director, Eriksen went to Ajax instead. And in any case, Chelsea already had their own Eriksen, a young midfielder of similar age with outstanding touch and vision. His name was Josh McEachran, who is currently trying to rebuild his career at Vitesse Arnhem in Holland. The point is this: talent only gets you so far. What makes the difference? At some level, it comes down to making the right decisions.
Eriksen is not especially strong or quick. Where he excels is in his ability to see the next three seconds of the game before anyone else, and to make the right call at exactly the right moment. In the words of Martin Jol, who gave Eriksen his Ajax debut at the age of 17, “he sees more than most”.
Like many of us, Eriksen played computer games obsessively as a kid. On Football Manager, he would take charge of Roma or Valencia, powering through an entire season in a couple of days. And perhaps those decision-making skills – his ability to see the game as from above – were honed from those long nights in front of a flickering screen.
The other thing Eriksen has is time. Or, more specifically: timing. He is one of the world’s best at waiting for the right instant to release the ball, whether a pass or a shot. In jazz, they talk about syncopation: the “missed beat” that throws the ear off balance. Eriksen is a maestro at playing the ball on an offbeat; just a fraction after you expect him to.
It was clear from the outset that Eriksen had a rare and special talent. As he made his way through the ranks at Ajax, the comparisons began to stack up. Michael Laudrup. Jari Litmanen. Rafael van der Vaart. Most external observers focused on his passing range, his close control, his flair and foresight. But what often gets overlooked in Eriksen’s game is his capacity for graft.
If you look at the statistics, Eriksen is not only the hardest worker atTottenham, but one of the hardest workers in the entire Premier League. According to EA Sports, which tracks the distance covered by every Premier League player, only Nemanja Matic, Jack Colback and Steven Nzonzi have covered more ground this season. At Tottenham, Eriksen has run 30 per cent more than any of his team-mates.
And you thought he was just a free-kick taker. In fact, it is Eriksen’s willingness to put in the yards that have made him such an important part of the current Tottenham side.
Successive managers tried – and often failed – to get the best out of Eriksen. Under Andre Villas-Boas last season, he often made little impact coming in off the right wing, and struggled with injuries. Tim Sherwood liked to play 4-4-2, which meant Eriksen was often shunted out to the left wing. While he chipped in with goals and assists, he was frequently an auxiliary player rather than the main threat.
Under Mauricio Pochettino, Eriksen has a far more pivotal role. Even when he plays on the left, he spends little time on that flank. As well as increasing his scoring, he is making more tackles than ever, and has improved the defensive side of his game in the last 12 months.
“We ended last season with Sherwood and 4-4-2, and now it is 4-3-3, so of course the style is a bit different,” Eriksen says. “Now we have had it for more than six months, so everyone knows what we are doing. If you have a plan from a manager, you know what to do, and you just want to show it. That definitely helps you.”
Now comes an opportunity to win his first trophy in English football.
Chelsea will start as strong favourites on Sunday, especially given Tottenham’s Europa League exertions. But they still bear the scars of their 5-3 defeat at White Hart Lane on New Year’s Day, in which Eriksen, Nacer Chadli and Harry Kane combined to exemplary effect. “We showed that we can play against them and beat them,” Eriksen says. “That gives us a lot of confidence that we are able and can do it again.”
The big question is what happens next. Beyond Sunday’s game, speculation about Eriksen’s future at Tottenham is sure to increase. Europe’s giants are beginning to circle. Tottenham have had Luka Modric and Gareth Bale wrenched from their grasp in previous seasons. But Eriksen’s innate sense of timing – that knack of waiting to make his move – indicates he will not move to one of Europe’s giants until he feels he can claim a regular first-team place. The likelihood is that Eriksen will have a decision to make before long. History suggests he will make the right one.
By Jonathan Liew
In a parallel universe, Christian Eriksen will be stepping out at Wembley Stadium on Sunday afternoon wearing blue. There was a time when Eriksen could conceivably have joined Chelsea; he flew over from Denmark to have trials at Cobham when he was 14 and 15.
Instinctively, he felt uneasy. “I enjoyed myself during the trials, but it was too big a step at that time,” he says now. “It was so different from what I was used to in Denmark. In England you can’t enter the training ground without permission. Whereas in Denmark, you are free to go in.”
So on the advice of Frank Arnesen, Chelsea’s sporting director, Eriksen went to Ajax instead. And in any case, Chelsea already had their own Eriksen, a young midfielder of similar age with outstanding touch and vision. His name was Josh McEachran, who is currently trying to rebuild his career at Vitesse Arnhem in Holland. The point is this: talent only gets you so far. What makes the difference? At some level, it comes down to making the right decisions.
Eriksen is not especially strong or quick. Where he excels is in his ability to see the next three seconds of the game before anyone else, and to make the right call at exactly the right moment. In the words of Martin Jol, who gave Eriksen his Ajax debut at the age of 17, “he sees more than most”.
Like many of us, Eriksen played computer games obsessively as a kid. On Football Manager, he would take charge of Roma or Valencia, powering through an entire season in a couple of days. And perhaps those decision-making skills – his ability to see the game as from above – were honed from those long nights in front of a flickering screen.
The other thing Eriksen has is time. Or, more specifically: timing. He is one of the world’s best at waiting for the right instant to release the ball, whether a pass or a shot. In jazz, they talk about syncopation: the “missed beat” that throws the ear off balance. Eriksen is a maestro at playing the ball on an offbeat; just a fraction after you expect him to.
It was clear from the outset that Eriksen had a rare and special talent. As he made his way through the ranks at Ajax, the comparisons began to stack up. Michael Laudrup. Jari Litmanen. Rafael van der Vaart. Most external observers focused on his passing range, his close control, his flair and foresight. But what often gets overlooked in Eriksen’s game is his capacity for graft.
If you look at the statistics, Eriksen is not only the hardest worker atTottenham, but one of the hardest workers in the entire Premier League. According to EA Sports, which tracks the distance covered by every Premier League player, only Nemanja Matic, Jack Colback and Steven Nzonzi have covered more ground this season. At Tottenham, Eriksen has run 30 per cent more than any of his team-mates.
And you thought he was just a free-kick taker. In fact, it is Eriksen’s willingness to put in the yards that have made him such an important part of the current Tottenham side.
Successive managers tried – and often failed – to get the best out of Eriksen. Under Andre Villas-Boas last season, he often made little impact coming in off the right wing, and struggled with injuries. Tim Sherwood liked to play 4-4-2, which meant Eriksen was often shunted out to the left wing. While he chipped in with goals and assists, he was frequently an auxiliary player rather than the main threat.
Under Mauricio Pochettino, Eriksen has a far more pivotal role. Even when he plays on the left, he spends little time on that flank. As well as increasing his scoring, he is making more tackles than ever, and has improved the defensive side of his game in the last 12 months.
“We ended last season with Sherwood and 4-4-2, and now it is 4-3-3, so of course the style is a bit different,” Eriksen says. “Now we have had it for more than six months, so everyone knows what we are doing. If you have a plan from a manager, you know what to do, and you just want to show it. That definitely helps you.”
Now comes an opportunity to win his first trophy in English football.
Chelsea will start as strong favourites on Sunday, especially given Tottenham’s Europa League exertions. But they still bear the scars of their 5-3 defeat at White Hart Lane on New Year’s Day, in which Eriksen, Nacer Chadli and Harry Kane combined to exemplary effect. “We showed that we can play against them and beat them,” Eriksen says. “That gives us a lot of confidence that we are able and can do it again.”
The big question is what happens next. Beyond Sunday’s game, speculation about Eriksen’s future at Tottenham is sure to increase. Europe’s giants are beginning to circle. Tottenham have had Luka Modric and Gareth Bale wrenched from their grasp in previous seasons. But Eriksen’s innate sense of timing – that knack of waiting to make his move – indicates he will not move to one of Europe’s giants until he feels he can claim a regular first-team place. The likelihood is that Eriksen will have a decision to make before long. History suggests he will make the right one.
Type “Spursy” into an internet search engine and it is not hard to find the Urban Dictionary definition that says: “To consistently and inevitably fail to live up to expectations. To bottle it.” Christian Eriksen did not know the slang term for Tottenham Hotspur’s ability to shoot themselves in the foot, but was well aware that the club have been known for a failure to get over the line.
Critics may well argue that the Denmark midfielder and his Tottenham team-mates have shown some ‘Spursy’ tendencies this month by losing the Capital One Cup final to Chelsea and producing their worst half of football in last week’s 3-0 defeat against Manchester United, just as a top-four Premier League finish was looking like a realistic prospect.
Eriksen, however, believes the current group of Spurs players can consign the term ‘Spursy’ to history and use the Capital One Cup final to breed a winning mentality.
“We can change the reputation, I really think so,” said Eriksen. “We have a really young team and people can still develop into something better. Hopefully, it will go in the right direction and, definitely, we have to show we can be a team to cross the line.
“It helped that we played the final, with the pressure. Everybody got in the mood and I don’t think anybody wants that feeling of losing again – exhausted and still just moaning because we could have done better. That helped everyone to take a look at what is needed at the top level and in important games.”
Tottenham are six points behind fourth-placed United going into today’s game against bottom-of-the-table Leicester City and Eriksen still believes Champions League qualification is up for grabs.
Asked whether Spurs’ season is effectively over, Eriksen emphatically replied: “No. Not for us. We knew before the game with United that there would be 10 finals. Of course we hoped for a better result, but then we didn’t get what we wanted because we played one of our worst first halves of the season.
“But we’ve still got nine games to go. You lose one game and you are supposedly out of it. You win one and you are in again. So, hopefully, we will keep winning and we will see where we are.”
The character of the Tottenham team has been questioned more than once and by more than one manager over the past couple of years, but Eriksen dismissed the theory that they lack leaders.
“That’s a myth 100 per cent,” he said. “We have a few players who will say something if it goes wrong and if it goes well everyone will probably say a bit more.
“It can be that you say something to a team-mate or to the whole group. It’s more about talking as a team and being together, instead of shouting and screaming. You don’t want to be just talking for no reason, you want to say something that helps.”
Eriksen has experience of crossing the line with Ajax, where he won three successive Dutch titles and helped the club to claw back deficits to achieve their goal.
“Always with Ajax it was a fight to win the title,” he said. “The first two seasons we played six months average and then the last six months we played really well, and that’s where we got the points – at the end.
“The first season the gap between Twente at the top and Ajax was 11 points, and we ended up being champions. So I’ve done it before. It was hard, but it is possible.”
Eriksen became used to playing Champions League football at Ajax and was part of the team that beat Manchester City in the competition in 2012.
The 23-year-old is desperate to play on Europe’s biggest stage again, but insists he would not give up a place in the Europa League next season to try to boost a Champions League push.
“Everybody who has played in the Champions League knows that the feeling is different,” said Eriksen. “Right now you sit at home and you watch it on the TV, and then you speak about it the next day. It’s just about the Champions League. ‘Did you see this? Did you see that?’ There was a big difference between watching it and playing in it. You had the chance to play. You had the song when you went on the pitch. You had the atmosphere, the fans, everything was just more exciting. It gives you such a boost to play in the Champions League.”
Tottenham qualified for the Champions League in 2010, when they had not been competing in the Europa League.
“The Europa League, it’s a lot of travelling and it’s a day later before you play at the weekend,” said Eriksen. “Of course the squads are so big that it shouldn’t be an issue. But it probably is because you have so many extra games if you play for qualification. You have some games in Kiev or far away, whereas for the bigger teams in the Champions League it is generally around the corner.
“For me personally, though, if I can’t play in the Champions League, I would like to play in the Europa League. Because there is a chance you could win the Europa League and go into the Champions League!
“It’s not only for that. You get the chance to show off somewhere else and you play somewhere else, instead of just teams in the Premier League.
“You see differences when you play against an Italian team, they play differently. A Spanish team, they play differently. So you learn a few things and I think that’s good for everyone in their careers to play as many games as possible and not just in the domestic league.”
Eriksen will be away from his domestic league next week, as he meets up with Denmark and can beat Michael Laudrup’s record by becoming the youngest player to reach 50 caps.
“I still have to achieve a little bit to get to Laudrup, but we’ll see in a few years,” said Eriksen.
Tottenham also have a little bit to achieve to shake off the ‘Spursy’ reputation, but Eriksen is clearly determined to lead them over the line.
Tottenham Hotspur will be wearing special edition shirts during the match with Leicester City, supporting the AIA China Youth Football Development programme, an initiative that aims to provide sporting opportunities to disadvantaged young people in rural China. Two young people from Dulou Village, Guangdong, will be team mascots for the game.
Critics may well argue that the Denmark midfielder and his Tottenham team-mates have shown some ‘Spursy’ tendencies this month by losing the Capital One Cup final to Chelsea and producing their worst half of football in last week’s 3-0 defeat against Manchester United, just as a top-four Premier League finish was looking like a realistic prospect.
Eriksen, however, believes the current group of Spurs players can consign the term ‘Spursy’ to history and use the Capital One Cup final to breed a winning mentality.
“We can change the reputation, I really think so,” said Eriksen. “We have a really young team and people can still develop into something better. Hopefully, it will go in the right direction and, definitely, we have to show we can be a team to cross the line.
“It helped that we played the final, with the pressure. Everybody got in the mood and I don’t think anybody wants that feeling of losing again – exhausted and still just moaning because we could have done better. That helped everyone to take a look at what is needed at the top level and in important games.”
Tottenham are six points behind fourth-placed United going into today’s game against bottom-of-the-table Leicester City and Eriksen still believes Champions League qualification is up for grabs.
Asked whether Spurs’ season is effectively over, Eriksen emphatically replied: “No. Not for us. We knew before the game with United that there would be 10 finals. Of course we hoped for a better result, but then we didn’t get what we wanted because we played one of our worst first halves of the season.
“But we’ve still got nine games to go. You lose one game and you are supposedly out of it. You win one and you are in again. So, hopefully, we will keep winning and we will see where we are.”
The character of the Tottenham team has been questioned more than once and by more than one manager over the past couple of years, but Eriksen dismissed the theory that they lack leaders.
“That’s a myth 100 per cent,” he said. “We have a few players who will say something if it goes wrong and if it goes well everyone will probably say a bit more.
“It can be that you say something to a team-mate or to the whole group. It’s more about talking as a team and being together, instead of shouting and screaming. You don’t want to be just talking for no reason, you want to say something that helps.”
Eriksen has experience of crossing the line with Ajax, where he won three successive Dutch titles and helped the club to claw back deficits to achieve their goal.
“Always with Ajax it was a fight to win the title,” he said. “The first two seasons we played six months average and then the last six months we played really well, and that’s where we got the points – at the end.
“The first season the gap between Twente at the top and Ajax was 11 points, and we ended up being champions. So I’ve done it before. It was hard, but it is possible.”
Eriksen became used to playing Champions League football at Ajax and was part of the team that beat Manchester City in the competition in 2012.
The 23-year-old is desperate to play on Europe’s biggest stage again, but insists he would not give up a place in the Europa League next season to try to boost a Champions League push.
“Everybody who has played in the Champions League knows that the feeling is different,” said Eriksen. “Right now you sit at home and you watch it on the TV, and then you speak about it the next day. It’s just about the Champions League. ‘Did you see this? Did you see that?’ There was a big difference between watching it and playing in it. You had the chance to play. You had the song when you went on the pitch. You had the atmosphere, the fans, everything was just more exciting. It gives you such a boost to play in the Champions League.”
Tottenham qualified for the Champions League in 2010, when they had not been competing in the Europa League.
“The Europa League, it’s a lot of travelling and it’s a day later before you play at the weekend,” said Eriksen. “Of course the squads are so big that it shouldn’t be an issue. But it probably is because you have so many extra games if you play for qualification. You have some games in Kiev or far away, whereas for the bigger teams in the Champions League it is generally around the corner.
“For me personally, though, if I can’t play in the Champions League, I would like to play in the Europa League. Because there is a chance you could win the Europa League and go into the Champions League!
“It’s not only for that. You get the chance to show off somewhere else and you play somewhere else, instead of just teams in the Premier League.
“You see differences when you play against an Italian team, they play differently. A Spanish team, they play differently. So you learn a few things and I think that’s good for everyone in their careers to play as many games as possible and not just in the domestic league.”
Eriksen will be away from his domestic league next week, as he meets up with Denmark and can beat Michael Laudrup’s record by becoming the youngest player to reach 50 caps.
“I still have to achieve a little bit to get to Laudrup, but we’ll see in a few years,” said Eriksen.
Tottenham also have a little bit to achieve to shake off the ‘Spursy’ reputation, but Eriksen is clearly determined to lead them over the line.
Tottenham Hotspur will be wearing special edition shirts during the match with Leicester City, supporting the AIA China Youth Football Development programme, an initiative that aims to provide sporting opportunities to disadvantaged young people in rural China. Two young people from Dulou Village, Guangdong, will be team mascots for the game.
Fuck. It's been quiet in here for the past few weeks hasn't it?
Yeah, all the witty people must have been on holiday together...
I've as much chance of signing for PSG as Eriksen has.
Fucking agents always on the prowl for stories to be written about their players. The Sunday's will be full of Sterling to Real and Walcott to Barcelona, even though they've no chance.
^^ that's what you pay you ticket price for. Ginola was the king. Even getting tanked week in week out you'd still pay to see world class skills. Not all sides have a player like that.
Eriksen's peach of an assist ...
Pretty sure that's not Eriksen, I am fairly sure he came off at half time.
I think you are confused with some other player named Christiansen, who came on in the second half.
And
FlashScores told me a bunch of lies. Said he had come off at half time, but it was William Kvist.
Every finish is a good finish when you play against the backline of the USA.
Though I did read an article saying that Bendtner isn't happy with his lack of playing time at Wolfsburg.
Something is fucking awesome in the state of Denmark.Eriksen's peach of an assist ...
Nice vid, not just goals etc but bits of nice skill and passing.