Paul Merson has insisted that Christian Eriksen is the real number one at Tottenham even though “he doesn’t even look like a footballer”.
The Sky Sports pundit claimed the Spurs playmaker may not look like an obvious superstar if you saw him walking down the street but he is the club’s main man ahead of Harry Kane.
Merson explained why he is such a big fan of the 26-year-old, signed from Ajax in the summer of 2013.
“I think Eriksen is the club’s best player and most of this Spurs team-mates would probably agree,” Merson wrote in the Daily Star. “I’ve always been a big fan of his. He reminds me of Paul Scholes.
“Eriksen just plays the game, goes home and gets on with life. He’s unassuming. He’s not in the headlines for the wrong reasons. He doesn’t even look like a footballer really, does he?
“If you saw him walking down the street and didn’t know who he was, you wouldn’t think “footballer” straight away… but what a player.”
OPINION
It’s certainly a big talking point whether Eriksen is a better player than goal king Kane, who has continued to produce the goods this season despite not looking at his most electric and while most of his teammates have been struck down by injury or post World-Cup blues. Eriksen is one of those who has broken down and, even since he regained fitness, the great Dane has only started three of Spurs’ last eight matches. He was surprisingly on the bench for the must-win midweek match against Inter Milan but came on with 20 minutes remaining and scored the winner. Tottenham have churned out results this season, and coped well without Eriksen, but he is the team’s most inventive player capable of doing things no well else can. Surely, he will be restored to the starting XI for the north London derby on Sunday, when Mauricio Pochettino will select his strongest available XI for the third titanic clash in a week.