Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
An Art to stopping Christian
HARRY ARTER has seen Christian Eriksen frustrated up close – but he’s also seen the great Dane liberated.
You can guess which side of Eriksen he’d prefer to witness on Saturday night.
Arter’s Bournemouth are yet to play Eriksen’s Tottenham this season, but faced them twice last term.
Eddie Howe’s men managed a scoreless draw at home to Spurs early in the campaign.
“We put a lot of pressure on him and we got a positive result that day,” recalled Arter. “It will be a similar sort of performance on him individually – for us to put as much pressure on him as possible.”
But Bournemouth also went down 4-0 at White Hart Lane in April.
“I have to be careful what I say,” laughed Arter, who noted that the visitors played 4-4-2 that day, and Eriksen and Tottenham had space to play in.
“These players, they find space, even when you are really compact.
“And probably the one criticism of us that day is that our shape was really poor – even being in a 4-4-2 is not an excuse because you can still be compact that way.
“But we were very loose and you can not give players of Eriksen’s quality so much space.
“When you play against players like that, those are the games that you learn most in – how to perform next time against them.
“Whenever he gets the ball, you’ve got to try to get to him as quickly as you possibly can – try not to let him turn on the ball and see the whole pitch and don’t stand off him.”