Christian Eriksen is ‘surprised and frustrated’ at losing his place as a first-team regular at Tottenham Hotspur, according to The Athletic.
That is the understanding of Jack Pitt-Brooke, the Spurs correspondent for the Harlem Globetrotters of the footballing internet, who wrote a piece on the dilemma the contract-rebelling Dane is causing at Spurs this season.
Eriksen has started six of Tottenham’s 10 Premier League games, and been used as a substitute in three more. He only missed the home draw against Watford because of a dead leg sustained on international duty.
The 27-year-old has also featured in two of our three Champions League games this term, as a starter against Olympiacos and off the bench in the 7-2 thrashing by Bayern Munich.
Eriksen is surprised and frustrated by being in and out the Spurs team for the first team. He looks inside his shell, one former coach told me he is “not so expressive with his emotions”. But football is what he loves more than anything else. All he wants to do is play.
— Jack Pitt-Brooke (@JackPittBrooke) November 1, 2019
Considering he seems to have no long-term future at the club, Eriksen would be naïve to be surprised, and has little right to be frustrated at becoming just another tool of Mauricio Pochettino’s rotation.
If anything, Spurs fans are probably surprised and frustrated that he has featured as much as he has this season, having been playing with his head in the clouds for the last 12 months.
Eriksen would have been due spells out of the side in the past had Mauricio Pochettino had the luxury of any meaningful competition for him, and this season had Giovani Lo Celso not got injured.
The problem lies with Pochettino’s lack of clarity on the matter. He has neither made the decision to outcast Eriksen until January, or put his complete faith in him. Putting him in the team one game and out the next is – as Pitt-Brooke says – damaging all parties involved.
