How Tottenham Can Get the Best out of Christian Eriksen in 2015-16
Christian Eriksen was the saving grace of Tottenham Hotspur's 2013-14 season. Signed at the beginning of the campaign, the attacking midfield helped inject colour and creativity to an unexpected—in its scale anyway—transitional year.
A true footballing lifeline appreciated by his new fans, Eriksen was voted their Player of the Year. The Dane was invaluable again in the season just completed, helping turn a potentially mediocre first term for new head coach Mauricio Pochettino into a respectable one.
Heading into 2015-16, there is notable intrigue in where Pochettino can take Tottenham from here. It is a reasonable assumption to make that Eriksen, the team's chief playmaker of late, will be intrinsic to any progress. But for the north Londoners to truly get the best out of him, adjustments will need to be made to how he is deployed.
There is a default setting of detachment with which Eriksen carries himself around a football pitch. It gives way for goal celebrations, whether his own or team-mates'. But mostly he remains the same cool, quietly calculating figure.
It is partly why he is such a captivating watch. Anticipating what choices he will make once he receives the ball, there is excitement, even awe when that decision matches expectation.
Cleverly dribbling past an opponent or setting up a colleague with a precise, positive pass. Often both together, sometimes concluded with a shot testing the goalkeeper, from his own boots or otherwise. The 23-year-old performs it with an ease which has marked him out as one of European football's brightest young talents since his teens.
The other interpretation of that detachment is of a player too frequently operating from the margins of a game. Style over substance, the failure to make the most of a mind capable of taking charge of any 90 minutes.
After the added games of Tottenham's post-season tour, Eriksen's 2014-15 came to a close with Denmark's 2-0 European Championships qualifier win over Serbia at the Telia Parken in Copenhagen on June 13. The victory leaves Morten Olsen's side second in Group I, two points behind leaders Portugal and three ahead of Albania in third place.
Eriksen's performance was one which the aforementioned two sides of his football persona were on show. As too was the debate over what position best accentuates his talents while minimising his ineffective spells.
Given a left-wing starting berth, he saw little of the ball there and likely will have remained a peripheral figure had he unsurprisingly not gone in search of it. Denmark's first real attacking spell, eight minutes in, came when Eriksen won a header centrally and then headed out right to continue participation in a move which concluded when his floating header was cleared.
Indeed, his best moments came everywhere but the left flank.
Out right he helped progress the attack which led to Yussuf Poulsen's 13th-minute opener. Later on, after switching play to Nicklas Bendtner, he sped across field, collected a return pass and forced an excellent top-corner save from Serbia goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic. Before Jakob Poulsen's 87th-minute winner, it was Denmark's best chance of the second half.
The player's international exploits have naturally always somewhat been entwined with his club efforts. But Eriksen's involvement in games has been examined under a keener microscope since his national-team boss Olsen criticised him last autumn.
Speaking about the player after Denmark's 3-1 defeat by Portugal in October, Olsen told reporters:
"After so many matches he could pick up the ball and help to control the game. He has not been able to.
Therefore, we blame him. He must stand up to the criticism, and he does too.
"
In the same post-Portugal media exchanges, Eriksen did indeed stand up to his manager's criticism, admitting he needed to up his production. Nonetheless, Olsen's words were still a little harsh.
Eriksen was one of Spurs' better-performing players around that time. He was showing signs of carrying on where he left off in his first year in England. His overall work was commensurate with a player of his age adapting to a relatively new country, too (albeit one with the greater expectations placed on his shoulders since his Ajax days).
There were some quiet performances in the immediate weeks following Olsen's comments. But as Spurs began to adapt to life under Pochettino, Eriksen played like someone keen to prove himself while helping his team.
Goals in wins over Hull City, Everton, Swansea City and Leicester City were the pre-New Year standout moments. January was a particularly rich month, playing well as part of a confident team, the Dane notably scored twice to help see off Sheffield United in the Capital One Cup final (including a sumptuous free-kick).
The autumn-into-winter period last season showed Eriksen can flourish in a variety of roles when the parts around him are working well, too. Obvious as it sounds, the best thing for him heading into the upcoming campaign will be being able to play in settled sides for club and country.
It may seem like it is downgrading his status to essentially advocate less responsibility to carry a team. But be it in greater help in attack or a defence avoiding scorelines that require being rescued from, Eriksen will benefit from the realisation that he can only carry his teams so far.
Still, certainly so far as Spurs is concerned, this will be partly influenced by deciding where Eriksen best fits in the team.
Last season, he was primarily used in a central attacking midfield role, albeit one with room to move elsewhere if the game demanded it. There were also occasions when he was used on the wing, such as in late November and early December, when he was switched out there to accommodate the front two of Harry Kane and Roberto Soldado.
Like in Denmark's win over Serbia, Eriksen is capable of finding a way to influence games despite being stationed in what must feel like the sticks. But the greater problem with him playing as a winger (inverted or otherwise) is the unavoidably one-on-one defensive situations he is thrust into.
Thankfully for him, Serbia's Zoran Tosic did not cause him too many problems. But there were examples for Spurs when he was exposed dealing with the responsibility of such focused defending.
The near-futility of leaving Eriksen to deal with Swansea's Wayne Routledge was exposed both by his repeated failures to stop him, and just how much better Spurs were when he was moved back into the middle later in December's 2-1 away win.
Even playing centrally does not guarantee things will be perfect.
Further forward, Eriksen faces issues of crowding—trying not to run into and occupy the same positions as fellow attackers like Nacer Chadli and Erik Lamela, all while attempting to breach opposition defences setting up to deny Spurs any space around the box.
Playing in something more akin to a central midfield role, Eriksen has more room and a greater vantage point in which the Spurs midfield linchpin can judge a game. He is not so bad getting involved in the dirty work of winning the ball back when not solely designated to track one player.
The issues here are that Eriksen is further away from goal, making it a little more difficult for him to try his luck at goal (though when he dropped back in the November win over Hull, it did not preclude him getting forward and eventually scoring the winner). Despite being more involved in the thick of a midfield battle, it does not stop the negative side of his detached self appearing. He may see more of the ball, but that does not necessarily mean he will force the issue.
Besides improving the team around him, the best hope for getting more out of Eriksen in 2015-16 essentially revolves around his own progression. The man becoming more comfortable in his own skin and the player finding even more confidence to take on some of world football's best players.
So far as something Pochettino can do strategically, he has to plan more careful adaptions of Eriksen's ability, moving him up and down a figurative ladder between central and attacking midfield (but one of those rolling ones you see in big libraries that can be rolled from side to side).
Against opponents who come to set up shop at White Hart Lane particularly, put Eriksen in the centre-circle and trust in him to see the best way through. It should encourage him to be more active in these challenges and will help avoid the frustrations of operating in tighter confines further forward. It may be the case he ends up there if he figures a way he and his team-mates can put them on the back foot.
Against the better sides—and perhaps away from home when lesser teams will be more ambitious—encourage Eriksen to take the lead. There will be points in such games where he needs to play further back. But the fact is that he is one of Spurs' most dangerous weapons (22 goals and 15 assists in two seasons, per ESPN FC) and therefore one of their most likely chances of hurting sides here.
Of course, all this is easier said than done. But for a player who so often comes off laconic, like he is operating at a different pace and level to others, the only way to make him even better than he is will be by looking at such concentrated, albeit subtle, fixes.
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