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Speaking on Sky Sports after Tottenham beat Aston Villa 3-1 in Saturday's late kick-off, Jamie Redknapp delivered his assessment on the situation regarding Christian Eriksen's future at the club.
The Denmark international wants to leave Spurs but was unable to get a move away from the north Londoners in the summer transfer window - he could still leave for a European club, but Tottenham would be unable to sign a replacement as the window for English clubs has shut.
Eriksen has just a year left on his contract with Spurs, and Redknapp has shared his opinion on what he thinks the club should do with the playmaker.
What did he say?
Redknapp said: "Until Eriksen came on the field I didn't see Spurs winning that game. Every time a Spurs player got the ball, the first player they looked for was him.
"[The comeback] was more to do with him than anyone else. He showed his importance to that team today.
"Players like that are few and far between. They’ve gotta keep him. If he wants a bit more money, that’s what great players deserve."
Redknapp is right - Spurs have to keep Eriksen
In the current state of the market, finding a replacement of similar quality to Eriksen would be enormously difficult and incredibly expensive.
Eriksen played just 26 minutes of Saturday's game, but was impressively involved quite heavily in such a short amount of time - the 27-year-old had three shots, made three key passes and was involved in Tanguy Ndombele's equaliser.
The former Ajax man reportedly wants to match Harry Kane's £200k-a-week salary, which would put him on £10.4m-a-year if Spurs handed that to him.
But Tottenham would surely have to pay an eye-watering premium to secure the services of a player of Eriksen's calibre.
In that respect, Redknapp is right. Pay him what he wants and it would arguably work out cheaper for Spurs than if they were to actively find a replacement - even putting Eriksen on a new three-year deal at that wage would only cost Tottenham £31.2m in total.
A player of this quality simply can't leave given how tough - and how expensive - it would be to replace him.
Spurs simply have to keep Eriksen.
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