Tottenham Hotspur star Christian Eriksen has now hit out at Pep Guardiola for his “Harry Kane team” comment. The Danish attacking midfielder maintains that his side is not a one man team, and called Guardiola’s comment disrespectful.
The Manchester City manager has since apologized for what he said, claiming that he absolutely did not mean any disrespect by it. Eriksen isn’t having any of that and this weekend he gave a long, opinionated response.
“So you’re making it ‘the Harry Kane team.’ That’s what your headline is!” Eriksen told the media after Saturday’s home win over Bournemouth.
“We’re a team, of course. When Harry doesn’t score we have a strong enough team to score, if it’s me, Dele [Alli], Sonny [Son Heung-Min], Tripps [Kieran Trippier] or [Moussa] Sissoko. It could be anyone, whoever gets the chance and is good enough to finish. Today the ball fell for me but of course it’s a team performance. I think it was a very tough but a good game.
“I think it’s a team performance. If Harry doesn’t score somebody else must score. Of course Harry, with all the chances he gets, he has the biggest chance of scoring and, with how good he is, he will score goals, but we all have to score goals.
“Of course nobody wants to be called a one-man team, if it’s meant seriously,” Christian Eriksen continued.
“I don’t know if it was, but if it was, then it’s a team performance and I think, like the manager said, if you have respect you probably don’t say it, but maybe it was a joke.”
“I think over the last few seasons it’s been almost the same team every season. We know each other very well. There are strong links between all the players and a good feeling going into training and going into the games. We’ve got something special and I hope that’s what people on the outside see, and it’s what the squad feels.”
“I don’t think you should take anything personally. I’m not sure how it’s been said. I think everybody knows that now you should take it with a gram of salt and see what it really is.”
“I haven’t read anything about it really so I don’t know what’s really going on, what the argument is really,” he concluded.
Pep Guardiola and Man City welcome Christian Eriksen and Tottenham to Manchester on December 16.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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