60 Wednesday January 19 2022 | the times
SportFootball
Giggs’s domestic violence
trial delayed until August
Ryan Giggs’s chances of taking charge
of Wales at the World Cup finals have
receded after his trial for domestic
violence was delayed until August 8.
Wales will qualify for the Qatar
World Cup, which begins in
November, if they beat Austria on
March 24 and then the winner of
Scotland v Ukraine in the play-offs.
Robert Page remains in interim
charge. Giggs denies the allegations
and pleaded not guilty to all charges.World Cup tickets on sale
to Qatar residents for £8
The first tickets for this year’s World
Cup are to go on sale today with the
lowest category, for Qatar residents
only, priced at $11 (£8) — the cheapest
for a World Cup since 1986 in Mexico,
(Martyn Ziegler writes).
The move attempts to counter any
criticism that the migrant workers
who make up the majority of Qatar’s
2.7million population are being priced
out of attending matches at the World
Cup, which begins on November 21.what kind of player is eriksen
now?
The actual answer is that we don’t
know: Christian Eriksen hasn’t played
since he suffered a cardiac arrest
during Denmark’s Euro 2020 game
with Finland on June 12. Although
there are examples of players looking
pretty much like their old selves after
the implantation of a defibrillator —
most notably Daley Blind — we can’t
forecast with any certainty to what
extent Eriksen’s game may have to
adapt to his new circumstances. All
we can go on is his most recent body
of work for Inter Milan and Denmark.
Eriksen, 29, has always been an
excellent goalscorer, with an
exceptional ability to find the net
from distance, and this part of his
game remained strong. In the period
between the resumption of football in
June 2020 and his collapse, Eriksen
scored 11 goals in 3,404 minutes for
club and country, or one every 3.44
full games.
After featuring mostly as a No 10 in
his first half-season at Inter under
Antonio Conte, Eriksen was most
successful in his second season, when
Inter won the scudetto, as more of a
central or deep-lying playmaker in a
3-5-2, playing alongside two more
industrious midfielders. He is perhaps
not quite such a front-line chance
creator as he was in the Premier
League, though FBref credits him for
5.7 expected assists from 2,089
minutes in Serie A, at a not-too-
shabby rate of 0.25 per 90 minutes —
in other words, his passing creates
chances worth one goal every four
games. For Denmark, he had been
playing as a more advanced attacking
midfielder in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3.
Eriksen’s weakness as a player is
that he offers little off the ball: in fact,
FBref has him in the lowest percentile
for both pressures and tackles. That is
something that any team who sign
him will have to take into account.
how would he fit at brentford?
Brentford have offered Eriksen a six-
Which club could do with Eriksen?
James Gheerbrant runs
through options for the
midfielder, who could
return to England after
his collapse at the Euros
month contract, and one can
certainly see what he could add to
Thomas Frank’s team. Brentford are a
strong, organised, well-coached side
but they lack guile and imagination
— from open play, at least. Their
average of 6.05 open-play chances
created per game is the second-lowest
in the league, and with the exception
of Mathias Jensen, the midfield offers
industry but scant creativity.
Signing Eriksen would redress this
and Brentford could offer him a
platform not dissimilar to the one he
enjoyed under Conte — they already
set up in a 3-5-2 and he would play
alongside two much more diligent
midfielders, probably Christian
Norgaard and Vitaly Janelt. Brentford
are one of the most innovative and
effective teams in the league at set
pieces, and one could certainly see
Eriksen’s delivery adding dead-ball
value: between the start of the
2015-16 season and his departure
in January 2020, no player in
the Premier League created
more chances from set plays
than Eriksen. Culturally, he
would fit in well in a squad
that has several Danish
players, including
Norgaard and Jensen.
The question is
whether Brentford could
accommodate Eriksen in
the defensive phase. They
are one of the more
active pressing teams in
the league, allowing 12.3
passes per defensive
action. But Eriksen’s
quality in attack makes
him a gamble worth
taking.
There are three other
teams he could work with.newcastle united
Newcastle are an obvious
destination, in that they
have money and need all
the quality they can get.
They have scored only 20
goals in 20 games. Newcastle
are comfortably the most stand-
offish team in the league, allowing
16.4 passes per defensive action, so
Eriksen’s lack of defensive work-
rate doesn’t pose much of an issue.
In terms of the composition ofNewcastle’s team, Eriksen probably
makes most sense as an alternative to
Jonjo Shelvey, another technically
adept but defensively inert midfielder
with an eye for goal. In November,
shortly after taking the Newcastle job,
Eddie Howe suggested he intended to
build the team around Shelvey and
his ability to “play passes all over the
pitch, long and short”. Eriksen would
be a higher-class orchestrator with
more experience and ability to
advance the ball.
It is hard to see where Eriksen fits
into a 4-4-2, which is the formation
Howe has preferred. Recent games
have had a switch to 4-3-3 or 4-1-4-1
system, which could work, with
Eriksen in the midfield three alongside
the industrious duo of Sean Longstaff
and Joelinton. Newcastle need to make
a big leap in attacking productivity to
survive; they would have little to lose
from taking a punt.brighton & hove albion
Graham Potter was asked at his
most recent press conference
whether Brighton were
interested in Eriksen
and refused to be
drawn. It is an
addition
that would
make some
sense.
Brighton have
a longstanding issue
scoring goals in the
volume that their
dominance merits:
since the start of
last season, they
have scored 61 in
58 Premier League
games. Brighton
have used 3-5-2 and
4-2-3-1 this season,
and in possession
have the sort of
slow, intricate
passing style that
would appear ideally
suited to Eriksen.
The area of
incompatibility is that
Brighton are one of the most
active defensive teams in the
league, allowing their
opponents 10.2 passes per
defensive action (third-fewest).
There is little room for a passenger
in Brighton’s off-the-ball work,
though it is worth saying that most oftheir pressing, relatively speaking,
comes from the front: they rank
fourth for total pressures in the
attacking third this season, but only
13th for pressures in the middle third.
Potter has assembled a mostly
young squad but has shown a
willingness to add class and
experience, notably in signing Adam
Lallana. Potter enthused about how
“he has played at the very highest
level and has a wealth of experience
alongside his technical quality... he
will be an excellent role model for our
younger players”.
Brighton have played with Alexis
Mac Allister as a No 10 in some recent
games, but Mac Allister is one of the
most active pressers in the league and
Eriksen may work better splitting
minutes with Lallana in the central-
midfield playmaker role, perhaps
coming off the bench in games in
which Brighton are prepared to
sacrifice a little defensive intensity for
some invention and goal threat.wolverhampton wanderers
Wolves are a team of two halves. At
the back, their record of 0.75 goals
conceded per game is the second-best
in the Premier League this season,
behind Manchester City. In attack,
their record of 0.85 goals scored per
game is the second-worst.
Wolves are a top-half team thanks
to their outstanding defence, but their
aspirations to be anything more than
that are being undermined by their
attacking futility. They have scored
one goal from midfield all season, and
their average of 6.65 open-play
chances created per game is the fifth-
lowest in the league.
Would Eriksen fit into Bruno Lage’s
team? Defensively, Wolves are one of
the least active sides in the division,
with their average of 14.9 passes
allowed per defensive action the
third-highest in the league. That style
could accommodate his limitations.
Wolves’ basic shape this season has
been 3-4-3, but they have played 3-5-2
and it’s an awful lot easier to shift to
3-5-2 from 3-4-3 than it is from a
back-four system. Eriksen could play
as the most liberated midfielder in
3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2, with João Moutinho
and Ruben Neves in the pivot and
Raúl Jiménez and Daniel Podence (or
Francisco Trincão, or Hwang Hee-
chan) up front.
Whichever team he signs for, it will
be wonderful to have him back.p
wld
T
Eriksen won the Serie A i
title with Inter last yearGareth Southgate is seeking legal
advice after his name was used in
an apparent scam to encourage people
to buy cryptocurrencies.
The England manager’s name
appeared on marketing emails and in
advertisements stating that he had
made a fortune from what claims to be
a cryptotrading platform called Bitcoin
Bank, and had been on Ellen DeGener-
es’s TV talk show to explain his success.
The use of fake celebrity endorse-
ments for cryptocurrency products is a
growing problem as the industry has no
financial regulation.
A spokesman for the England man-
ager said: “The details about Mr South-
gate in this story are completely untrue
and his name has been used without
permission.”
It is unclear whether Bitcoin Bank
is an unrecognised cryptotrading
platform or just a scam.
The advertisement, somewhat
bizarrely, states: “Gareth Southgate has
made a name for himself as a brash
straight-talker who doesn’t mind being
honest about everything, including
how he makes his money.”Scammers use
‘Southgate’ ad
Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter