Tottenham cannot allow Christian Eriksen to hold them hostage

Christian Eriksen is pushing Tottenham to give him a massive raise, but Spurs can thrive even if they are forced to sell the Danish playmaker.

Tottenham have done an excellent job of locking up Harry Kane, Dele Alli and several other prominent stars to long-term contracts over the past few months. Christian Eriksen is one of the biggest names who hasn’t committed his future to the North London club. If the talented Dane continues to hold out for more money, Spurs may choose to sell him off in the summer.

Quite a few Tottenham supporters on social media would find that idea abhorrent. Eriksen is, after all, a key player for the squad. Selling him due to an inability to meet his wage demands might hurt Tottenham’s perception with other big name players in Europe.

While those are valid points, Eriksen isn’t the player who should be busting Spurs’ current wage structure. Daniel Levy deserves credit for paying Kane and Dele sufficient wages for them to remain at Tottenham. He’s clearly willing to offer Eriksen something in the range of what the club are paying Dele at the moment.

Eriksen’s unwillingness to sign that kind of deal makes it obvious he wants to be paid like Kane. That’s not a deal Tottenham should accept. The simple truth is that Mauricio Pochettino and company have gotten along just fine without Eriksen in the lineup this season. He’s certainly a tremendous asset to Spurs when he’s at his best, but that hasn’t happened much this season.

Tottenham haven’t played beautiful football this year, but they are off to their best start in the Premier League era. Spurs fans would love to be higher than fourth, but they are squarely in contention for a Champions League place at the moment. The squad has achieved that level of success with relatively little help from Eriksen.

In fairness to the Danish midfielder, he’s struggled with an abdominal injury for a significant portion of the season. It’s not necessarily his fault that he hasn’t made a huge impact. Nonetheless, Tottenham fans should note that Eriksen is yet to score in nine league appearances on the campaign. He has added two valuable assists, but his Whoscored.com player rating average of just 6.67 illustrates just how mediocre he’s been. For those wondering, that ranks 18th in the squad.

The point here is that the emergence of other attacking midfield options now gives Tottenham the ability to succeed without Eriksen on the pitch. The aforementioned Dele and Erik Lamela are both more than capable of playing great football behind Kane. Lucas Moura and Heung-Min Son are arguably better wide players than Eriksen due to their pace and trickery with the ball at their feet.

Clearly, the best case scenario for Tottenham is for Eriksen to relent and sign a new deal. Spurs are certainly at their best when he’s playing his best football. He is not, however, absolutely crucial to any success Tottenham can achieve. Eriksen needs to be careful he doesn’t overplay his negotiating hand with Pochettino.