Why Christian Eriksen Is Key Figure to Lift Tottenham After West Brom Defeat

It was tough going for Christian Eriksen in Tottenham Hotspur's 1-0 defeat to West Bromwich Albion on Sunday.

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In the face of an obstinate Baggies defence, Eriksen and his fellow attacking midfielders grew increasingly stilted, desperate even, in their attempts to break the visitors down.

Head coach Mauricio Pochettino was understandably frustrated in his post-match remarks to the club's official website.

"Maybe we didn’t deserve to lose the game but we made a mistake from a set-piece and after that the team never showed the belief to get the three points."

West Brom did not confine themselves to a negative approach and sought to put Tottenham under pressure when possible. Even so, manager Alan Irvine was also smart enough to realise maintaining positional discipline and working hard to close the home side's attackers down would frustrate them.

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Rendering Eriksen largely ineffective helped Irvine's side to their first Premier League win of the season.

Getting the best out of the Dane will be key to Spurs getting back on a winning track themselves.

The North Londoners are far from a full-blown crisis. Despite such a disappointing loss leaving them without a victory in their last three league games, it is still early in a campaign in which some growing pains were expected under a new manager.

Eriksen himself is enjoying a decent overall start as he gets use to life with Pochettino. Bleacher Report's Sam Rooke thought "he looked back to his brilliant best" in the 2-2 draw with Sunderland, a match in which he netted his first goal of the season.

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The West Brom game was a setback in that regard. His one shot was deflected wide just prior to half-time, while a couple of promising attempted balls to striker Emmanuel Adebayor proved to be the limit of his creative contributions of note.

In a formation that most closely resembles 4-2-3-1, Pochettino has gone with the attacking midfield trio of Eriksen, Nacer Chadli and Erik Lamela since their excellent performance against Queens Park Rangers.

The guile, skill, speed and power they are capable of summoning in combination and individually, has been seen at times since then (notably in some delightful passages of play against Sunderland). However, in games they are denied so much space to operate—such as the Liverpool and West Brom losses—fluidity has been seen to quickly give way to a more crowded and less prosperous situation.

It is not quite a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. On TottenhamHotspur.com, the heat maps for those three players against West Brom demonstrate they have areas where they wield more influence.

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Since they all primarily attempt to make things happen in and around the final third, though, clever teams will quickly find ways of blocking their paths, or at least attempt to direct them away from goal.

Eriksen and his head coach will hope a full flowering of form is not too far away for him (and the whole team for that matter). It will be intriguing to see if the coaching staff contemplates tweaking their approach in regards to the playmaker in an attempt to instigate it. Especially in next week's North London derby away at Arsenal, Spurs' toughest game of the season so far.

With due respect to Chadli, Pochettino seems likely to be keen to keep Eriksen and Lamela in his team. The former is arguably the team's best passer, the latter its potential game changer (his dribbling is increasingly becoming a threat). Eriksen is also versatile enough that his role could be changed to the benefit of the team.

The left midfield role in which the Denmark international was predominantly used by Tim Sherwood is too peripheral for the frequency with which he is asked to get involved in Pochettino's set-up. The deeper central midfield role he occupied a couple of times following Sherwood's appointment could be worth revisiting, though.

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Dropping Eriksen back to form a three-man midfield (for instance, with Mousa Dembele and Etienne Capoue, the latter anchoring those two) would certainly give Spurs more of a presence there. Against a team as capable and talented in the middle as the Gunners, that could make a difference in keeping them quiet.

It might not be at the expense of Eriksen's attacking side, either. It could allow Lamela, particularly, the chance to maximise his incisiveness and quick-thinking in tight spaces further forward, with the former Ajax man behind him taking a lead role in directing the effort (while he could still get forward in support when possible).

Eriksen is good at playing the quick close-range passes or through balls that can free players around the penalty area. He also has an understanding in setting the tempo and direction of Spurs' play that might be better suited to the wider expanse of vision he would be granted further back.

With two other midfielders alongside him, he would not have a heavy burden on him to "to defend or run around," as he admitted he dislikes doing, in an interview with The Observer's Barney Ronay (via The Guardian) in April. But he can hold his own there if needed—Squawka records him as having won 67 percent of his duels this season, including eight of his 13 tackles.

Pochettino may maintain the status quo, and perhaps that particular strategy will see Eriksen and Co. come good soon enough. Whatever is asked of him, Tottenham enjoying a swift pick-me-up after their West Brom disappointment will likely be somewhat dependent on the man their fans voted player of the year last season.