The mistake we made was never having an understudy for Eriksen. We needed one during the height of his reign, it would have helped Imus in the key movements as well made the transition to a post Eriksen era that much easier as his understudy would have already been fully integrated. No other "top side" has a single creative attacker in the squad, it's ridiculously poor squad building.
I know he wasn't a like for like, which I personally see as a problem. We went from having one of the best facilitators in the world, who also packed a mean shot if necessary, to having our world class target man as the only one able to make a through pass of value.
I agree
Not going to be me, everything is about opinions. If I had stone cold facts I would have kicked Mourinho out myself and taken his place, even for a VERY short amount of time. But I'm not sure about a great no. 10 being obsolete, perhaps they're just a bit harder to come by these days if you want to buy the finished article. If we had N'Dombele or Højbjerg alongside or behind Eriksen in his good era, we would've won the league. IMHO of course.
And our energy overload system hid weaknesses that became glaringly obvious as soon as said system fell apart. I have mentioned earlier that it's quite scary that Sissoko went from being an eternal benchwarmer to a regular starter within 12 months in roughly the same player core, without improving one iota.
Nothing wrong with having a great N10 but you also need another creative player in the side. Like Subzero said Ndombele in midfield with Eriksen ahead could have been magic.
Agreed.... though it was Grealish that Poch wanted to replace Eriksen (the player who has created the most chances in the PL this season I believe so a good choice).
A great no. 10 will of course never be off form or unavailable. Joke aside, a great no. 10 is mainly what separated us from being title contenders to where we are now. Let's not fool ourselves, players like Winks, Sissoko, Lamela, Moura, Alli have not improved or regressed much, it's just that their shortcomings are being doubly exposed outside the high energy and focused system we no longer have. All of our movement up top that highly praised is gone again. No one makes runs apart from our wide players. There's no intent in what we do. That is down to Mourinho. Winks cannot be expected to do something he wasn't able to do in the first place. Dier is no CB, he's either a DM or a championship player. Sanchez never looked solid outside having Vertoby as babysitters, and even then it was just "potential". Everything was built upon moving the ball forward to Eriksen and the rest either making runs, luring defenders or stay the hell away.
Like he did with Berbatov?
