Tottenham‘s Champions League final hangover after defeat to Liverpool undermined the club’s start to the 2019-20 season, but the disappointment at missing a potentially once-in-a-lifetime shot at glory was not the only issue giving the club a headache.
The desire to move on from that painful evening and start afresh was undermined by the uncertainty surrounding the futures of three of the club’s starters in Madrid – Jan Vertonghen, Toby Alderweireld and Christian Eriksen – which is documented in Amazon’s All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur series.
All three players were approaching the final 12-months of their deals but it was the situation surrounding Eriksen – the player who so expertly knitted defence to attack in midfield – which overshadowed the club’s pre-season. “I feel that I am at a stage of my career where I would like to try something new,” said Eriksen a few days after the final in June. It wasn’t until January that he was eventually sold to Inter Milan.
Eriksen is given a decent chunk of airtime in the third episode of All or Nothing as Mourinho and Daniel Levy try to figure out what to do with him. “When the team needs the ball, he moves the ball better, the team is a little bit more fluid but one thing is the dynamic and another thing is the push. He doesn’t push. That extra desire is missing,” Mourinho tells his chairman, before enquiring: “Where is he going?”
“I don’t know,” responds Levy. “The problem we have with Christian is that none of us know what the real truth is, his agent controls everything and there is no dialogue between the club and his agent at all.”
Mourinho successfully convinced Alderweireld to sign a new deal with Spurs and, later on in the episode, Levy tries to ascertain whether a similar resolution with Eriksen can be reached. After Eriksen shakes hands with both Mourinho and Levy in the club’s canteen, Levy asks: “Do you think there’s definitely no way to turn him?”
“We can try once more,” comes Mourinho’s response. “At least then we’ll know that we tried everything,” says Levy. Eriksen comes across as many would expect him to: he’s amiable, unconfrontational and seems well liked by players and staff alike. Yet it is clear that he resents his situation. “It’s the only business in the world where you’re allowed to write what you want and there is no consequences,” he tells the cameras amid the constant speculation over his future.
Sadly, Tottenham’s top-assister in the Premier League era did not get the send-off his service warranted. He was booed after coming off in a 1-0 defeat to Liverpool, a couple of weeks before his move to Inter was confirmed. At that point, Eriksen must have thought his season could only move in an upwards trajectory.
That hasn’t necessarily been the case, though. Eriksen is not a typical Antonio Conte midfielder. Indeed, the former Chelsea boss favoured a move for Barcelona’s combative Chilean Arturo Vidal instead. It would be difficult to find two more diametrically opposed midfield players.
Conte certainly found it difficult shoehorning a creative player into a more functional midfield three. Of Eriksen’s 26 appearances under the former Chelsea boss, only 11 came from the start. In his final two Serie A appearances of the season, Eriksen came on in the 89th minute both times, while he was afforded only a dozen minutes to try to salvage something from Inter’s Europa League final defeat to Sevilla last Friday.
It is unlikely that playing a bit-part role for Inter was what Eriksen envisaged when he publicly stated his desire to leave Spurs. That isn’t to say there haven’t been some promising moments. He scored on his European debut for Inter against Ludogorets in February, produced a goal and assist off the bench in July’s 6-0 thrashing of Brescia and stood out during their Coppa Italia semi-final defeat to Napoli.
Considering Inter spent €20m to sign Eriksen in January when he would have been available for free six months later, though, Conte’s recent cold treatment and reluctance to play him is unlikely to have been well received by his bosses. Financially, Tottenham appear to have got the better side of the deal despite Eriksen moving for significantly less than his market value.
In a scenario that will surprise no Chelsea supporter, Conte improved Inter’s fortunes on the pitch – despite the club’s ninth successive trophyless season – but was a divisive figure off it. “It has been wonderful for me to be the coach of Inter, I thank the owners who allowed me to go through this great experience,” he said after Friday’s defeat.
Those comments and Conte’s general demeanour suggested he could well leave this summer – a situation which might have benefited Eriksen – but on Tuesday, the club announced that he would in fact be staying.
That doesn’t necessarily sound the death knell for Eriksen’s Inter career. A first pre-season, albeit a reduced one, should allow him and Conte to learn more about what makes the other tick. That is what Eriksen will be hoping for anyway, following a forgettable 2019-20 campaign.
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