Alan Shearer has slammed Tottenham playmaker Christian Eriksen for his performance in the north London derby and urged him to be consistently excellent.
The 25-year-old played the full 90 minutes at the Emirates Stadium but made little impact as Spurs were convincingly beaten 2-0 by Arsenal.
The result put a major spanner in Tottenham’s title challenge and means that Arsenal have closed the gap on their bitter rivals to a single point in the league table.
Writing in his column for the Sun, Shearer believes that Eriksen needs to deliver the goods in all the major matches and not just sporadically.
“We saw the way Eriksen destroyed the Republic of Ireland with a stunning hat-trick for Denmark in the midweek,” said the Premier League’s record scorer. “Was he drained from that experience? He should have been empowered by it.
“Top players do it week in, week out for club and country. It’s not a chore, it’s a joy.”
The Denmark international has failed to provide a single goal or assist against Arsenal in 10 appearances for Spurs in all competitions.
Despite his display on the weekend, Eriksen scored four goals and provided four assists for his club in all competitions.
OPINION
Eriksen’s standing is at its highest of his four-and-a-half years at Spurs and talk of a potential move to Barcelona is certainly not fanciful. But the playmaker’s record against Arsenal is woeful, and it not escape attention that he was also invisible in the recent defeat to Manchester United. The great Dane has taken his game to new heights in 2017 but there remain digs from the Tottenham faithful and beyond that he is a flat-track bully who can go missing too often in the marquee matches. Yes, he was outstanding against Republic of Ireland and delivered a performance that will go down in the annals for his country, but it was essentially against a bunch of players he would expect to dominate. For Eriksen to be considered in the top few brackets of players, he must also be the best against the best.