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#2 Christian Eriksen had a stinker
So much is made of the influence of Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son on Tottenham’s fortunes that often, the brilliant work of Christian Eriksen flies under the radar somewhat.
In reality though, Eriksen is arguably the key man for Spurs, and his stats – 9 goals and 16 assists in all competitions – back that up. Unfortunately though, tonight was one of his poorest games in recent memory.
Everything the Danish playmaker tried just seemed to go wrong tonight; he misplaced passes, seemed to be rushing his build-up play too often, and his set-pieces went mostly awry too. A passing success rate of 66.7% - way down from his Champions League average of 80.1% - should tell the whole story really.
It’s hard to put your finger on what went wrong for Eriksen against his old club, too. It could be argued that he’s simply exhausted after a long season that’s seen him appear in 46 games for Spurs, but my hunch is that without Harry Winks, Eric Dier and Moussa Sissoko (for the first half of this game at least) to provide control in the centre of the field, Eriksen just doesn’t have enough time or space to really pick the lock of the opposition’s defence.
Judging by his lofty standards it’s unlikely that Eriksen will have another game as poor as this any time soon, but it was still a very disappointing performance that definitely contributed to Tottenham’s loss.
