Think he’s someone that definitely needs a loan. Keeping him around like we’ve done with KWP is not doing him or us any good. Hopefully he goes somewhere in the next few days and gets a good run of games under his belt.
Can's been ****ing useless at Juve and was no better at Liverpool. If we're going to spend actual money on buying him, we're ****ed...totally ****ed.
Now it's almost over, I hope we can all drop any ill feeling towards him and be grateful for the great play we saw. I have mightily enjoyed watching him in his time and it isn't like he was around for 5 minutes to get him a leg up to a richer club. Good luck and thank you Christian.
Rumours starting to build that Rose is going to Newcastle on loan. Finally, we're moving forwards and clearing out the old. Big Vic next...?
I have mixed feelings too. Not nearly as upset as I was when Poch left as tbh Eriksen's completely indifferent form since spring last year was a major factor in things unraveling for The Magic One, but still...he stuck by us through 2 challenging seasons (AVB/Interim and Poch's first) with no CL football to thank him for it. And he was just such a magnificent player to watch at his best - easily up there with VDV, Ginola, Bale etc. in the sense that you could expect the extraordinary from him, and he delivered time after time. But I do think that ultimately, the most telling and perhaps damning assessment of his career with us is the fact that no-one bigger than Inter showed any real interest in him at any stage of his 'Project Leave'. Save from an 11th hour half-arsed enquiry from Barca, Inter and Serie A (only the 4th best league in Europe) has become his destination more likely than not because of the correct perception that when push came to shove, he just didn't have the minerals to perform consistently at the highest level, when it really mattered. Which I suppose was the overall bottom line story of the Poch era. So near, yet so far.
It's similar for me, Poch was my favourite manager at Spurs (closely followed by 'Arry) and when he left it sucked but it also felt like the right decision. Eriksen is up there with Modric and Bale in my opinion, I'd say he's done (and given) more for this club than those two but they're the better players. I appreciate his form nosedived this season but in most of his 6 and a half years he's constantly been either our best or one of our best players and so to lose someone of this magnitude is never nice for the club. Poch heavily - arguably overly - relied on Eriksen for his creativity and I think without him Poch wouldn't have enjoyed the success he had, equally Eriksen needed Pochettino to make him the focal point that he was in order for him to flourish like he did. In terms of interest, I think things were just at a bad time for Eriksen, Barca and Real don't really play with a 10 hence why the likes of Coutinho and Isco struggle(d) for game time at both clubs, PSG and Juve also don't play with a 10 whilst Bayern loaned in Coutinho. If more of those clubs played with a 10 I think he'd have a lot more interest because there really aren't many better than him when he's on top form. Two people in Poch and Eriksen that have been great for this club for a good number of years, bad endings but they'll always have my utmost respect and best wishes for the future.
Bergwijn claims that he asked and received permission from his manager to travel to London. His manager confirms this. What exactly are PSV miffed at?
So Eriksen is going , very sad for it to happen this way, I never saw him as a Gelactico but on his day he could be up there with the best but he was never consistent enough The last 18 months has seen his performances taper off but there was always the hope when he was on the pitch he would pull a worldie or the killer pass out of the bag He was an ever present for the team in those days early poch years , thanks for the memories Christian and good luck
Poch never really seemed to get behind him, which was strange given that last season our options at CM veered from limited to downright depressing. That trend persisted into this season and has continued under Maureen. He urgently needs to go out on loan and get some proper experience. Same can be said for a number of our young 'Inbetweeners' who aren't playing for the U23s but also aren't getting a look in with the seniors. Poch had a pretty unique philosophy in this regard, believing that having them simply train with a better squad would be preferable to going out to the lower leagues. A philosophy I often found bizarre, given that many of his key players at various stages (Kane, Rose, Mason, Townsend) benefited from the loan system.
305 appearances, 69 goals and 89 assists. Not seen many better than him in my time of supporting Spurs even though the last year has been disappointing.
To play a little Devil’s Advocate here and provoke some thought - was Pochettino as good/ efficient at promoting youth as he was credited for? Poch joined and more or less immediately made Kane, Mason, Townsend and Bentaleb first teamers. All of these lads had played for the first team sparingly before Poch and all had loans beforehand too with the exception of Bentaleb, so whilst young and from the academy, they weren’t instantly plucked from obscurity. Since those lot broke through, the only other player in Poch’s 5 years in charge that sufficiently became a first team member was Winks. Onomah, CCV, Edwards, KWP, Skipp and Tanganga all got a sporadic appearance here and there, two of them have now left, two will probably leave on a permanent, one should be loaned and one is making a name for himself under Jose. I certainly think once a player became part of the first team squad as a young player, Poch was able to develop them superbly but actually promoting youth, I’d think there’s a case to say he wasn’t as good at it as fans and media initially suggested.
Funny you say this, I (of all people) floated this idea right at the beginning of the season when we were all soul-searching about what was going wrong. I didn't get very far with it but the gist of my argument was that the group Poch stepped into was our equivalent to United's famous Class of '92. The obvious counter-argument to this point (hence I didn't get very far at the time) is that the overall level of our first team increased so rapidly and drastically over those first 2 seasons under Poch that by the time the likes of Onomah, CCV, Edwards etc. were banging on the door, the step up was just too great for them to manage. Is it any coincidence that Winks has emerged as a key player at precisely the time that the overall quality of our CM has declined? Or that Tanganga looks at home in a defense well past its sell-by date? Would he have got a look in 3 years ago? Doubt it.