Jurgen Klopp: Every manager would love to have Tottenham 25-year-old in their team
By Harry Sykes
Jurgen Klopp has revealed he tried to sign Christian Eriksen when he was manager of Borussia Dortmund.
The Liverpool boss hailed the Tottenham playmaker as a “great player” who every head coach would love to have in his team.
Eriksen joined Spurs in the summer of 2013 from Ajax after they beat a host of European clubs, including Liverpool, to his signature.
The Denmark international, 25, has developed into one of the finest attacking midfielders in the Premier League over the last four seasons.
He is one of the star players in a Tottenham side that have been transformed under Mauricio Pochettino and been key to their new status as a Champions League club.
Klopp explained how Eriksen was tracked closely during his hugely successful spell as manager of Dortmund, that ended in May 2015.
“Christian Eriksen is a great player; everyone would love to have him in their team,” the Liverpool manager told Danish outlet Ekstra Bladet. “At that time we had three players [on our list] that we wanted – Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Kevin De Bruyne and Christian Eriksen.
“We scouted all three of them intensely, but we knew that we could only get one and we were happy to get Mkhitaryan. Since then Eriksen has taken a great step in joining Tottenham and he is playing very well.”
Eriksen has overcome a slow start to the season to score seven goals and supply 11 assists in 33 matches in all competitions for Tottenham in 2016/17.
The 66-times Denmark international has made 164 appearances for the London giants, scoring 37 goals and supplying 44 assists.
In other Tottenham transfer news, Daniel Levy has lined up the next Spurs arrival as the deal is all but done.
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