Tottenham came back from the Emirates with a hard-earned point on Sunday and BBC pundit Garth Crooks heaped praise on the performance of Christian Eriksen.
Eriksen scored the first goal of the game in the 10th minute after a shot from Erik Lamela was palmed into his path.
Harry Kane put Tottenham two up before a comeback from Arsenal that left Spurs hanging on in the second half of the game.
Writing in his Team of the Week column on the BBC website, Crooks said, “When I saw Eriksen start this north London derby I immediately thought Spurs can’t lose this game. I was right, they didn’t lose the game but they should have won it. Eriksen is a class act and when he is on his game there are few better.
“It was the Dane who bust a gut to get up with the play and tap home the loose rebound from the Erik Lamela shot. Spurs look like they might hang on to Eriksen for a little while longer which is just as well because they have no-one who can handle the ball better.”
Eriksen D-Day passes
It looks like Tottenham will have Eriksen for at least one more season. Mauricio Pochettino had said that if nothing happened on Saturday, he would likely stay with the club. The fact Eriksen started for Spurs – and played brilliantly – means that it’s highly unlikely a mega-deal will go through on Monday, the day the European window shuts.
As quoted in the Guardian, Pochettino said, “The good thing is if nothing happens on Saturday, because Sunday’s the game and it’s not going to happen on Monday – there’d be no real time to do something. On Saturday we are going to know if Christian is going to be with us or not.”
Eriksen showed again how important he is to Tottenham on Sunday and the game could have turned out really differently if he hadn’t scored that early goal. That turned the tide of the game and put Spurs in the ascendancy in the first half.
TiF Tactics – Eriksen goal changed the game
Bernd Leno should have done better with Lamela’s shot, instead of palming it out to Eriksen, but the fact that he was there ahead of all the Arsenal defenders showed his commitment to the cause on Sunday.
And the attack momentum graph from SofaScore below shows how it changed the game.
Following the goal, Tottenham dominated the game and also the spell around the 40-minute mark when the penalty was awarded,
By contrast, the second half was all Arsenal and they deserved the point. Crooks said Tottenham should have won it but Arsenal could easily have come away with the three points after having a goal disallowed late on in the game for offside. Perhaps a point was a fair result.
