Christian Eriksen has praised Tottenham Hotspur’s progress and resilience under Mauricio Pochettino, saying the team he joined five years ago would have lost by six goals after their nightmare start against Juventus on Tuesday.
“Tottenham has become, compared to what it was when I came to what it is now, completely different,” Eriksen said. “That’s up to the manager, up to the players and the quality we have in the squad really.
“When I arrived here, the games against the top teams when you are 2-0 down after nine minutes, you’d lose 6-0. That’s the thing we’ve changed with this manager [and] with the players we have. Everyone has grown up and they are not going to lie down if they are 2-0 down.”
“We showed in the last few games and in the season overall that we build on everything,” Eriksen said. “And coming to a stadium like Juve’s, I don’t know if it impressed us for the first nine minutes or it shocked us, but again we showed character to come back and we’re not going to lie down against anyone that we play.
“You could say it was a very bad start. Being 2-0 down after nine minutes, there’s only one way and that’s trying to come back. The thought that kept in everybody’s head was we have to turn it around, there’s no other option now, we’re 2-0 down and there’s only one way and that’s to create something, try to come back and we have the character and the quality to do that.”
“We don’t care where we are or what time it is or which stadium we play in or which we team we play — we always try to dominate, to get the ball forward as quickly as possible and create something,” Eriksen said. “They did start very offensive but after it was 2-0 they dropped a bit which gave us a bit more of the ball so we tried to create something afterwards. It helped us actually but not in a good way.
“It shows a lot of character. All the types we have in our team are players who like to go forward, try to create something. Either way we, winning or losing, we are going to try to pay the same way.”
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