Player Focus: Settled Lamela Could be Like a New Summer Signing

Of all the disappointments at Tottenham Hotspur last season, the greatest, perhaps, was Erik Lamela. He arrived, with a fanfare appropriate for the club’s record transfer, for a fee of £30million, perceived as perhaps the most exciting of the raft of players signed to replace Gareth Bale. He started just three Premier League games. When Tim Sherwood railed against those at the club who lacked backbone, when he effectively sidelined the new boys, most assumed that Lamela was at the top of his list of frustration.

Yet Lamela was frustrated too. He was unfortunate that he arrived with a calf problem that prevented him taking a full part in training. That, in turn, meant it took time for him to integrate into the squad and, it’s been suggested, created friction with the Spurs management as the problem was diagnosed. Sherwood did start him in his first game in charge, the 3-2 win at Southampton, but by then the process of writing the Argentinian off was already well under way.

He was an unused substitute against Manchester United on New Year’s day, after which he disappeared entirely, suffering a deep-rooted back problem that in turn created issues in his thigh. He finished the season having registered just one assist in his nine appearances in the league, and with a WhoScored.com rating of 6.34.

What he has done in pre-season already under Mauricio Pochettino has outstripped his achievements of last season. Lamela played a part in all five of Spurs’ games, scoring twice against Toronto and again against Celtic. He was man of the match against both Toronto and Chicago Fire. Suddenly, it has been possible to see again the player who so beguiled at Roma. “It is important to know that Erik is still young and it is difficult to adapt to the Premier League,” Pochettino said. “It is the most difficult league to play in  – the style, the language, but now, after one year at Tottenham, we believe that Erik is ready to show his quality.”

It’s worth remembering that, for all the hype that surrounded his arrival, Lamela is still only 22. It’s worth remembering also that, just because he’s cost £30million, it doesn’t mean a 21-year-old from Argentina is going to adapt rapidly to life in London. When Sherwood was asked in April how Lamela’s English was coming along, he shrugged and said, “Que?” It was a joke and not a particularly offensive or hurtful one, but as David Hytner noted in the Guardian, it did seem to sum up an attitude at Spurs: Lamela as the confused outsider, struggling to understand what was going on.

It’s too simple to suggest that Pochettino, as a fellow Argentinian, will necessarily be able to unleash Lamela’s genius, but he at least shares a culture, linguistically and from a football point of view. He’s already spoken of using Lamlea either wide or in a central creative role. “My philosophy is to give a freer style with a good organisation and not only with Erik, with other players,” the manager said. “The most important thing is to create a good shape for our players to be comfortable and to show their real qualities.”

It was cutting in from the left that Lamela made his mark at Roma, and a glance at his statistics from his final season there shows just how far he fell last season. There he made 29.8 passes (1.7 of them key) per game as opposed to 20.1 (0.7 of them key) at Spurs. Elsewhere he averaged 2.6 shots per game as opposed to 0.9, 3.0 dribbles per game to 1.0 and netted 15 league goals to none in the English capital.

Lamela is fully fit with a manager who has faith in him. The new signings have had time to settle after a summer that, the new manager aside, has been relatively quiet. Fully confident and in a team shape that suits him, there is no reason why Lamela shouldn’t start to hit those numbers again – and if he does so, he might again look a player worth £30million.

How much playing time do you think Lamela will get under Pochettino? Let us know in the comments below