Christian Eriksen has said that he wished he was more in control of his future after missing out on a move to Spain this summer. The Tottenham midfielder said in June that he was ready for a new challenge but when the transfer window closed on Monday he was still a Spurs player.

The Dane, who is preparing to face Gibraltar and Georgia with the national team on Thursday and Sunday, said: “I wish I could decide myself, like you can do in the [computer game] Football Manager, but I can’t do that sadly. I don’t think it was wrong [to say that it was time for a new challenge]. But this is football and you never know what happens in football. A lot of things play a part.”

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Eriksen has started two of Tottenham’s four league games so far, coming off the bench for the other two as the Champions League finalists have made a stuttering start to the season. He says it would be better if all the transfer windows in Europe closed at the same time and that he has sympathy for his club manager, Mauricio Pochettino.

“I think that most English clubs would like the window to close at the same time as the other countries,” he said. “It is a shit situation for a coach when he doesn’t know which players he will have at his disposal. I would have liked to play all games [from the beginning] but you have to ask my coach [why I didn’t].”

The 27-year-old, who has been at Tottenham since 2013, said all the transfer speculation this summer had not affected him at all. “It is not a problem for me to empty my head [and get away from it]. I don’t read a lot of what is written. I have been doing this for many years now and there have been a lot of rumours.

“A lot has been written, that I have been to Madrid to look for a house and so on, but it really doesn’t disrupt my life at all. The summer holidays were great. We went to Asia. It is always good to travel to the other side of the world.”