Tottenham player ratings v Manchester United: Eriksen flops without Kane
Christian Eriksen-5
Inevitably, many of you will think I’m being too harsh here. In reality, Eriksen was the one player in the squad who Pochettino couldn’t afford to have a bad performance without Kane. As I said in the open, Spurs needed more from Eriksen in this match, but unfortunately received less.
Perhaps Eriksen put too much pressure on himself to pick up Kane’s slack. No matter what the reasoning, he was very poor in this match. His first half performance left him lucky not to be hauled off at the break. Eriksen gave the ball away time and time again in the midfield during the opening 45 minutes.
He was better in the second half but he still wasn’t good. He stopped giving the ball away, but he didn’t manage to create even a single chance. Eriksen had a lot of time on the ball and didn’t do anything productive with it.
Harry Winks-6
The young Englishman didn’t look out-of-place in this match, but he was pretty mediocre. With Eriksen struggling, he had a real opportunity to put his imprint on the match. Unfortunately, he failed to stand out.
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Winks does deserve credit for putting in a pretty solid defensive shift. He didn’t allow United’s midfielders to run wild. Still, it was a pretty mediocre performance by Winks’ standards.
Moussa Sissoko-6
The United match represented a slight step backwards for the French midfielder. He’d been playing better in recent weeks, but he was decidedly average against the Red Devils.
On the plus side, he did provide Spurs some toughness in the middle of the pitch. Unfortunately, he didn’t do anything decidedly positive for his club. In a match where Tottenham were desperate for creativity and purpose, Sissoko provided neither.