Christian Eriksen Cannot Rest – Mauricio Pochettino

Mauricio Pochettino has come out to say that playmaker Christian Eriksen is mentally fatigued but mentioned tiredness is not to blame for Tottenham’s slump.

“A player like Christian Eriksen maybe can be a little bit tired. But it’s mental more than physical, because in the last international duty he played two amazing games to try to qualify for the World Cup, and he cannot rest, he cannot stop.”

“Maybe he struggles a little bit but his condition is fantastic because after every game the stats are unbelievable from him. But maybe I can agree that there may be some mental tiredness.

“It’s maybe possible. But other players? I think no. Dele Alli wasn’t involved in the first three Champions League games and we’ve rotated different players or managed their fitness. I think that is not the reason today why the team has struggled in the last few games to get a positive result.

“From the beginning of the season Christian is playing, playing, playing, with no time to rest. Maybe it’s him and Eric Dier that is playing a lot. Maybe Davinson Sanchez. It’s the same group, the players that travel a lot and were involved in nearly all the games.

“Maybe they can feel a little bit tired about competing, because it’s not because you run and the effect on your physique. It’s your mind as well and then when you’re an offensive player you always expend more energy than in other positions because people expect that you will create something, and for that it’s an amazing energy that you expend.

“We are trying to provide him and different players more time to rest and recover, with different strategies, and trying to help.”

“We have Saturday now against Watford and then the Champions League, yes we need to rest players. We’re going to play against Apoel, we are first in the table and of course it’s a great opportunity to rest players that need to rest and to help them for the next period to be fresh.”

“We trust him and believe he can add to the team,” Pochettino said of Lamela. “He gives us different options to play, different quality. But it is step-by-step with him, we need to careful. After more than one year not involved, not competing, now it’s about slowly building his confidence because competing is completely different to training.”