Eriksen

"The game changer was Christian Eriksen coming on - which is why he's wanted by a lot of clubs around the world."
(Dean Smith, Aston Villa manager)

...and it is why we must not sell him.

Certainly, any idea of him going to United must be completely out of the question.

Well, certainly until we have seen how well Lo Celso shapes up.

 

You’ve changed your tune

 

He`s gone if Real Madrid decide they want him, we should be offering him parity with Kane to try and keep him, he`s that important to us. I think he`ll run his contract down and hope to get his dream move for free at the end of the season. It will be disappointing to lose him, but if he stays for one last season it will give Lo Celso a chance to bed in and hopefully become his long term successor.

 

Yeah I think I have to admit I have definitely been too blasé about letting Eriksen go, especially earlier in the window - by the end I was more of the opinion we should just keep him for the final year. We’re not going to get even half of what he’s worth now, and trying on GLC to replace him this year is a massive risk - they’re actually quite different players for starters.

 

Clearly Levy wants rid this month. Problem is the team he’s been flashing his knickers at don’t seem to want to know.

There’s a faint hope that if he can’t get the move he wants that he’ll sign a new contract. But if he’s set on going, then please let’s get over and done with.,

 

And even if he does go now, it will be because :

1. He is not valued as top tier (no apex club was prepared to cough up
even though they know a rival could get him in this very scenario)

2. the stupid non-uniform Euro transfer windows (which UEFA could do
something about, or the PL could move to choosing the latest deadline day
of all of the Germany/Italy/Spain leagues) .

 

My Modric 2011-12 comparison gets ever stronger.
Spurs have to play Citeh as PL game 2, just as it was then.

Hope the end result is not the same, but Modric (among others)
had a very poor game by his standards.

So what then of Eriksen next week ??
A performance worthy of the largest show window on Earth,
or do the pundits wheel out Arry to reprise his
"his head's not in the right place" blurb ??

 

This is the thing stats don't show and people don't seem to give two hoots about.

But the fact is if he's not interested then he's of no use to us. Hence why his performance on the weekend was welcome...just like his performances at the tail end of last season were not.

I think he will go in the next few weeks...Levy isn't taking a hit

 

If he is still here on Sept 5th, then I hope that whether he signs a new contract or not, that he can give us another 40 performances like Saturdays and sign off from us as a winner and then he can go for free next summer with my best wishes he will have been an excellent servant of the club.

 

The problem for Spurs is that if he runs his contract down, he can leave next summer for whichever club offers him the biggest wages.
That makes it highly unlikely he would sign a new contract with Spurs. He could sign a 5 year £10M per year contract with another club next year which is the pay day at player of his ability, at his peak, is not going to reject.
Is it therefore better to sell him now for £50M and get him off the wage bill or keep him for this season and let him go for nothing?

 

Unusual as it may be for a modern footballer, he doesn't seem to be motivated by money alone. I'm sure you could have easily doubled whatever we're offering him but he just wasn't interested. He wants a new challenge and by that he means a clear step up from Spurs in a different country. Which, as DH rightly says, limits his options to 4 or 5 clubs in the world.

The fact that there are so few and none of them seem all that desperate to sign him (i.e. the same argument as you make could've been made for Hazard but Real wanted him urgently), coupled with the already limited options means that any bidding war over wages is unlikely to be of much benefit to the player.

If a bid does come in anywhere near the region of £50m, I reckon we will sell. If not, the most mutually beneficial solution moving forward would be for him to sign a new contract with a deliberately below-par release clause which is only active for the first X weeks of next summer's window only.

 

If he doesn't want to play for Spurs then the sooner he goes the better. Modric & Bale were far bigger losses IMO because they were consistent game changers. We have ended up with a much better team without them. It always comes back to the TEAM and how the collective perform together, this is the most important task of any manager and having people in that team who don't want to be there is a bigger problem than losing their individual qualities even when, as in the case of Eriksen, they might be the 'best' player in the team.

 

Juve reportedly sniffing around

He said he wanted a new challenge, who knew he meant fixing matches?

 

They are the kings of the 'Free Transfer', but he said he wanted a new 'challenge' - Juventus is not a challenge they win their league every year normally at a canter there is a better challenge for him here in London.

He did say originally that if the new challenge didn't materialise he could stay and I hope that CK is right and that he signs a new deal with a 'suitable clause' included and that he then gets back to his best. That will give us time to bed in Lo Celso properly and maintains the balance in our squad for at least 12 months more.

 

I think when we compare him to the other two elite players that left, there’s a strong argument to back Eriksen up in saying he’s more important and a bigger loss than what both Modric and Bale were.

Modric spent four seasons with the club, in his first season he started off a bit shaky but grew as it went on. The other three seasons, he became the man that made Spurs tick and controlled games with ease. When Spurs fans were telling the world he was one of the best midfielders around no one really believed us and it took a move to Madrid for him to showcase just what a player he was.

Bale spent about six seasons with us. The first two were riddled with injury and despite some flashes of potential, it wasn’t looking great for him. He then at one point even started being linked with a move to the championship, especially as he had an unwanted record with Spurs of not being on the winning side for x amount of games (think it was around 20+). Then he came alive in our debut CL season with the performances against Inter really getting him attention and his performances in both Europe and England really improving. His final season at Spurs probably saw the best individual performance throughout a season you’ve seen from a Spurs player, certainly in the Prem era anyway, that then convinced Madrid to part with a world record fee. In Bale’s six seasons, it’s probably fair to say he was only brilliant for about two and a half of those, albeit the final being better than anything we’ve seen.

Compare those now to Eriksen, who’s entering his seventh season with the club. He won our POTY in his debut season and has generally been one our top three players in each season since, picking up another POTY award a couple seasons back. Even when last season his performances were criticised, he was banging out impressive numbers that showed that even being below par, he was still head and shoulders above most of the league. Since he came to the Prem, no one has created more chances and no one has gotten more assists than him. He’s been a vital part in Spurs securing a fourth straight season in the CL. He’s been a key player in a better team too, both Modric and Bale were better players in poorer teams in my opinion, so I’d say it’s been a tougher task for Eriksen to stand out if your teammates are of a higher calibre.

This is why I’m personally fearful of losing him, Poch/ Levy has built a team we can all be proud of that has generally been so close to doing something special, if you take the most important part of that team out, it’s hard/ harder to see us achieving the success it really does deserve for all its hard work.

 

How is this clear?

 

He was touted to both Real and Atletico, according to various reports. If he’s set on going, of course Levy would want to sell him rather than see him go for free.

 

Not obviously true. If the fee is the value we lose from not having him for a season then Levy shouldn't care one way or the other. If we can get a higher fee than his value then Levy will want to sell him. People baulked at a £30m loan fee for Coutinho. Eriksen is available for zero fee next summer so any fee we get looks like a year's loan from the point of view of the buyer.

 

The fact remains that he can walk for nothing next summer. Levy will not want that. Of course it would be better if he stayed, but if he’s set on going then it’s best for all if he goes now.

I don’t see the loan analogy as being valid.