In 2022, Manchester United had four players who could effectively play in the deeper central midfield positions: Nemanja Matic, Scott McTominay, Fred, and Paul Pogba. After the 2021-22 season, Matic and Pogba left Old Trafford, leaving the club very light in the center of the park.
United sprang into action that summer, quickly signing Christian Eriksen on a free and throwing all their efforts into trying to lure Frenkie de Jong from Barcelona. When that didn’t work, they forked over £60m to sign Casemiro from Real Madrid.
Personally, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Eriksen signing, but it had nothing to do with his quality. United could certainly use a talent like him, but he was only one year removed from suffering from a heart condition that nearly killed him on the pitch. As a free transfer, Eriksen should have been the last piece of the puzzle. An extra high-quality player, you now had to come off the bench or make spot starts. In other words, he should have been replacing a different attacking midfielder who left the club that summer, Juan Mata.
My concerns about Dybala are his motivations (and why now vs three years ago?)
Eriksen actually makes sense if he's a replacement for Mata, much less so if he's someone who's gonna contribute to replacing Pogba and be expected to start every other game or so
— Pauly Kwestel (@pkwestel) July 6, 2022
Eriksen should have been the icing on the cake after a summer where you bring in your next midfield centerpiece. When United moved to sign him early in the window, it began to feel like a 30-year-old free transfer was how the club planned to replace Pogba. Those worries were cemented when a move for de Jong fell through and United began the season relying heavily on the Dane, who had only returned to football a few months prior with Brentford.
A free transfer for Eriksen was supposed to be the cherry on top and instead United have turned him into a player they’re going to rely on. Dicey! https://t.co/nJ79w3vpNC
— Pauly Kwestel (@pkwestel) August 27, 2022
Eriksen played in 28 Premier League games for United in 2022/23, 44 in all competitions with more than 2,000 minutes. While his starting role diminished over the last two seasons, he still played more than 1,000 minutes each season, and this past season he made 35 appearances.
Make no mistake, the Dane was still a useful player at United, but his role was far greater than it should have been, and that is a damning indictment of United’s recruitment and management.
Eriksen had primarily been an attacking midfielder. He played as either the number 10 or on one of the wings under Mauricio Pochettino at Spurs, while as one of the two 10’s in Antonio Conte’s back three system in his time at Inter. He was deployed deeper in his brief stint at Brentford, and Erik Ten Hag saw him almost exclusively as a midfielder.
Eriksen was able to provide about 80 percent of what United lost when Pogba left. He provided an on-ball quality that no other midfielder in United’s squad could offer. He had just two little flaws. He couldn’t defend, and his legs could only last for about 60 minutes. United weren’t wrong to sign Eriksen; they just needed someone who had his on-ball quality, while not being a complete liability defensively, and could do it for more than 60 minutes a week.
In his first season, Eriksen was a very important player for United, who made them better when he was on the pitch. For some reason* his playing time was reduced in his second season and even further reduced last year, all of which coincided with a drop in United’s creativity and goal scoring.
I say, for some reason, even though we all know the reason. Eriksen was on the wrong side of 30 with legs that just didn’t work anymore, playing in a position that demanded a lot of running. And oh yeah, the aforementioned heart condition.
Eriksen’s playing time started getting reduced as Erik Ten Hag started playing a much more open system that often left the midfielders on an island. When Ruben Amorim came in he brought in a system that demands a high level of physicality from his central midfielders. If Eriksen was only considered a central midfielder, this was a match made in hell. I don’t think anyone was surprised that Eriksen struggled badly in his first two starts under Amorim.
Eriksen started just four Premier League matches under Amorim. He played as both a central midfielder and as one of the number 10s under Amorim, but was never able to establish himself in the team. There was never any real clamor for Eriksen to be playing more; at his age, he was always an awkward fit into Amorim’s system.
Eriksen is leaving the club this summer as his contract has expired.
It’s still early in the summer. While agents are busy agent-ing and trying to get moves for their clients, players are still away on holiday, not thinking about football. The transfer window is open, but it’s not really in full swing. At this point, United have been linked to several players, primarily more of the forward variety, but of the midfielders we’ve heard mentioned, none seem to be a replacement for Eriksen. That’s a problem.
Many might scoff at the idea of needing to replace someone who played under a third of the total Premier League minutes over the last two years, but that’s exactly the point. One of the reasons United have gotten so much worse over the last two years is that Eriksen hasn’t been able to play, and they never bothered to replace him!
Eriksen is the second most technical player United have had over the last three years. They’ve been a better team when he’s on the pitch - over the last three years, they’ve won 50 percent of the matches he’s started, a 20 percent increase over their performance without him.
His on-ball quality is something United have badly needed over the last two years in terms of ball progression and creativity. When playing as a central midfielder this season, Eriksen made 5.36 progressive passes per 90, essentially equal to the 5.35 he made last season but still a drop from the 7.19 he made in his first year. However, that 5.36 would put him fourth on the team, only trailing Bruno Fernandes, Luke Shaw, and Lisandro Martinez.
Eriksen provided 12 assists in his three-year run at United. It’s a mere four assists per season, but it ranks him second behind Bruno for the most in that time frame. It’s also 33 percent more than the next player on the list (Garnacho, Dalot, and Rashford all tied with 8).
If we zoom out by one link in the chain to include the pass before the pass (or pre-assist), Eriksen had 19 “total” assists of his three years at Old Trafford - still second place by some margin. This season, he had a direct hand in 20 percent of United’s non-penalty goals. 43 percent of those non-penalty goals came when Eriksen was on the pitch despite playing just 31 percent of the minutes.
Eriksen was 30 years old when United signed him. At best, you were looking at one, maybetwo, years before he’d need to be replaced.
After Eriksen’s first year, United signed Mason Mount, who started the first two games of the season in central midfield - but even if Mount had stayed fit over the last two years, he’s such a different player to Eriksen and doesn’t offer the same on-ball qualities that Eriksen was giving to United. At best, Mount could be the Juan Mata replacement Eriksen should have been, though you could easily argue he was more of a Jesse Lingard replacement.
Signing a player like that to be a key player is a failure on the recruitment level. Not signing a replacement at all during his stay at the club, when you knew the expiration date of the player, is yet another failure on the recruitment level.
Throughout his time at Old Trafford, Eriksen still had something to offer United and had skills the rest of the team lacked. Not maximizing Eriksen’s longevity is a failure on the coaches.
Eriksen was never the most agile player in the middle of the park and was always suspect defensively. This wasn’t a huge issue in Ten Hag’s first season, as he actually did a good job mixing things up to maximize the talent of his players. It was in his second season that all that went out the window.
The latter part of Ten Hag’s tenure and under Amorim, the coaches started worrying about what Eriksen couldn’t do, rather than what he brought to the table. This is a failure of coaching.
Modern coaches love to prioritize their own systems over the players they have. They swear by the system even though most will never last at a job long enough to fully implement it. If your team needs certain traits on the pitch (and you have a player who can provide those traits), you need to figure out how to get him on the pitch. That’s likely going to require a compromise on your system because the reality is no player is perfect. You’re going to have to make adjustments to hide a player's weaknesses. If you can’t get your most technical players who increase your chances of scoring goals onto the pitch, your system isn’t going to be very successful.
It’s a lot easier to hide defensive weaknesses on the pitch than it is to recreate on-ball quality and creative passing. Running, tackling, and pressing are all important traits, but much easier to find or instill in a player than it is to find someone who’s a top player with the ball at his feet. The latter is what helps you take a game to your opponent and score goals. It’s especially important when you’re facing a team that wants to sit back against you.
It’s still too early to make sweeping statements about what Ruben Amorim is prioritizing in the transfer market. As of right now, the only “midfielders” we’ve heard about have been more of the industrious type that have high physicality levels and can run all day, which is consistent with the traits that Amorim has used in his midfield. That doesn’t mean someone else isn’t coming, but it doesn’t change how necessary it is. Those traits will only get you so far in the Premier League, especially against low blocks. If you want to win in this league, you need midfielders who can move the ball effectively.
United had one of those players in Christian Eriksen. He was far from perfect, but in just three years, he came to represent the shortcomings of the club’s recruitment and coaching. He never should have been signed to be the main player in a deep midfield role, and he never should have been the only player in the squad with his level of on-ball quality.
He also reflects the failures of United’s coaches. As they’ve done in other positions, they focused too much on what Eriksen couldn’t do, dropping him in favor of players who addressed those weaknesses. They never replaced the key qualities he brought to the team, though, and United have suffered as a result.