Underappreciated Eriksen

Christian Eriksen has taken plenty of flak from the unqualified expert managers on Twitter. His piece for the Official Spurs Website might help them to appreciate the difficulties and how players react to certain situations in a game.

The solutions Eriksen gives may not be the solutions the Twitter fans want, but then none of them are professional footballers. The two players they have given the most stick to had the most shots for us, Eriksen had 4 and Lamela had 5, hitting the bar with one of them. Apart from Danny Rose nobody else managed more than one shot.

On trying to find key passes."It’s always difficult. They stayed compact and didn’t let any runners between them. We still had our chances, the balls we played between were dangerous but not dangerous enough. 

"You keep trying and as an offensive player, you always look for that opportunity to create something, but there wasn’t many chances to do that. You have to try to find the right solutions when you are on the ball and if you are under pressure, you play it back, if not you go forward and try to create."

On the pattern of the game.
"It was a hard-fought game on every level, in every position. It was a difficult game. We tried to play offensively, tried to go forward but when we lost it they looked long and looked for the counter, so we had to go all the way back and start again. We had to build up again and again - you get tired at the end if you play at the level we both played." 

On the players' energy levels.
"We’re in very good shape and you saw that today. If you don’t score or take chances you look a little more tired but Bournemouth were a bit fresher, they didn’t play midweek, although the team is fit and everyone wants to play every game, so that’s a good thing."

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