Christian's delight

Practice made perfect for Christian Eriksen as he provided the spark for our memorable comeback against Dnipro in the Europa League on Thursday night.

Just minutes after the Ukraine team opened the scoring on the night, extending their aggregate lead to 2-0, the Danish playmaker expertly curled home a free-kick from the edge of the box to bring us back into the tie.

Dnipro goalscorer Roman Zuzulya was then sent off and Christian soon delivered the perfect cross for Emmanuel Adebayor to fire us in front and level on aggregate.

The final part of the jigsaw arrived on 69 minutes when Zeki Fryers picked out Ade, who controlled on his chest and lost Yevhen Cheberyachko in one movement before slotting home for 3-1 and 3-2 on aggregate.

Both Tim Sherwood and Ade picked out Christian’s free-kick as the key moment, with Tim revealing that Christian is always practicing his free-kicks after training. “We have to drag him off!” he said.

“Yes, I practice all the time and I think everyone has seen me after training, practising my free-kicks and luckily this time it went in,” said Christian.

“After they scored, we knew we had to score three times. It was great it went in and that lifted everyone. We had the confidence we needed, the trust in each to play and get the goals to go through.

“We really wanted to go through and it doesn’t matter who scores, it’s about getting the ball in the net and everyone is happy.”

Having helped us secure a R16 tie against Benfica, Christian quickly turned his attention back to the Premier League and Cardiff at the Lane on Sunday (4.30pm).

“We need to continue winning to get closer to what we want next season, which is the Champions League,” added Christian, who knows we’re in for a test, even though the Bluebirds arrive bottom of the table.

“It’s my first season in the Premier League and I can see how close all the teams are. There are no easy games, but we have to try and make this one by scoring goals again.”