Mauricio Pochettino’s side were knocked out of the group stage of the Champions League this season leaving them with only a place in the Europa League in the second half of the campaign. The manager will hope that his team can find some consistency in the domestic league after a 3-0 victory over Hull City in the previous round of fixtures in the Premier League. A brace from Christian Eriksen and a goal from Victor Wanyama gave Spurs all three points to keep them within touching distance of a place in the Champions League.
The manager will not have too many complaints about his side’s performance against the Tigers and he will be overjoyed by the form that the Danish international Christian Eriksen has found off late. The 24-year old moved to the White Hart Lane 3 years ago and has cemented a place in the starting XI in the last two seasons.
He is one of the first names on the team sheet for Pochettino in crunch games and he is now one of the most effective players in the Premier League this season with 5 goals and 4 assists in 15 appearances. He has a couple of goals in the League Cup as well but has not been effective in games consistently enough to take Spurs to the top of the table.
4 – Christian Eriksen has scored as many goals in his last four Premier League appearances (4) as in his previous 41 combined. Reignited.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 14, 2016
However, he now has 4 goals in his last 5 games, a goal scoring run that has not been replicated since his first season as in a senior side and is bang in form. Starting from the Champions League encounter against CSKA Moskva, Eriksen has dominated games from the middle in the final third and has improved Tottenham’s weakened goal threat in games against Swansea, and now against Hull. He had a below par game at the Old Trafford but his return in front of goal this season shows that Pochettino might be getting the best year in terms of productivity from him since his move to London.
In a staggering statistic which makes Eriksen better than the likes of Philippe Coutinho and Mesut Ozil is the fact that he has effected more goals+ assists since his debut in September 2013. Eriksen now has 28 goals and 27 assists to his name and Belgian Eden Hazard is the only player with better stats than that at the moment.
Pochettino knows that he is an influential player who has enough potential to lift the team to great heights and that at his age, he will only get better and more mature as a player. But what will excite Pochettino the most is how he has managed to take the centre stage in the past few games.
30 – There were 30 passes leading to Eriksen’s goal for @SpursOfficial v Hull; the most leading to a @PremierLeague goal this season. Style. pic.twitter.com/rCSsAXHAqq
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 14, 2016
After the disappointment at Old Trafford, Spurs were on a mission as it seemed against Hull and put in a dominating performance. Eriksen, who opened the scoring on the night, was all over the Hull City defence, finding pockets of space in dangerous areas and putting the pressure on the visitors.
In the build-up to the first goal, Pochettino’s side stitched 30 passes together before the goal, a record for the league this year, and Eriksen was involved in 6 of those passes, showing how much of an influence he is having on games. It is clear that he is evolving and is finding some form, but it will be important for Eriksen to find some consistency to grow on to become one of the best players in the world.
Do you think the Spurs man is back to his best this season?