Player Watch: Erik Lamela

[Sevens]

I can't really see how you've said anything here that goes against what I've said, apart from stating that he, in your opinion, isn't "fantastic".

Fantastic is a superlative word, however it is also a word that can be interpreted differently depending on it's context. You can have a fantastic player in a League 2 team who clearly wouldn't get in to our squad. If I was to claim he was world class, then that's a different matter.

I am giving you a reason as to why Lamela is panned by some. I would imagine in the vast majority of cases it has nothing to do with his effeminate look and more down to the fact that despite having a lot of talent he has been inconsistent and not as good as a lot of our fans proclaim him to be.

 

[Krafty]

I think people who doubt Lamela are probably a little frustrated that technically he is inconsistent - some lovely passes, runs, shots, crosses, and some rough touches, shanked passes and stumbles into opponents.

The work rate makes it for me and he is first choice for the that AMR position. I would like to see a few more goals, but as the team plays better the better Lamela plays and if he can just add a little more steel or focus, I think he could go on another level.

 

[Mark_Falco]

Tell you what I like about Lamela; he's nearly always offense minded, usually looking to go forward whether with the ball or by making an incisive pass to start someone else going forward, and then pushing on himself. He rarely if ever looks back, sometimes his actions don't come off and sometimes he can lose possession, but when they do work (and the balance is getting more in his favour every game as his confidence soars), they can lead to a chance created or a goal. It's no coincidence that he has such good stats for assists and touches of the ball in the opponents half over the last 2 seasons.

It's like he simplifies football down to a very basic level, a level whereby he knows real success is only to be gained down one end of the field, and also that offense is the best form of defence. In many ways I find his attitude refreshing in an age that is often bogged down in complex formations and tactics (he would have suited HR perfectly - "go and run around a bit, good lad"). If he can't see an immediate pass then he gains ground, often rapidly. He seems to know that moving quickly through the midfield will give him access to defenders most of whom hate nothing more than a flair player coming at them supported by the likes of Kane and Alli. And he knows that the faster he moves and the more tricks he uses, the harder it is for those ruffled defenders brains (excepting John Terry of course who doesn't possess that feature) can compute how to deal with him without giving Eriksen a free kick in range of goal.

More recently he's added another side to his game making him a more complete player probably than he was in Italy; he now fights to get the ball back, tackles back and shows aggression - marking him out from most flair players who think that's somebody else's job. Sometimes he can be a little over zealous and gets unnecessary bookings, I'm sure in time he'll learn to iron out some of this behaviour, it's good to have some aggression a la Deli Alli - it shows the team has an edge to it and can battle with the best of them.

I think the best way I can sum him up is to say that when he gets the ball I know we're going forward, even if he's marked. Once he starts moving then I move forward in my chair and start looking at where the other white/blue shirts are in relation to him, because I know that Eriksen and Alli will be looking to make runs beside him, Kane just in front or Rose and Walker will be overlapping him on the flanks. Or indeed these runs might be purely diversionary and Lamela might just be closing the range to goal looking for a crisp shot at goal which, although he's not the most prolific shooter, may well rebound off a defender and open up an opportunity to someone else. The point is something offensive usually happens once Erik has the ball.

Personally can only see an upward curve for the lad, and for me he's now an integral part of a great team - you can't say we'd have done as well as we have without him because we simply wouldn't; the previous game at Anfield being a case in mind. On my 2 shirts next season I'm having Lamela and Alderweireld - 2 of the less likely stars of our superb team.

 

[Pellshek]

I don't know if I'm the only one, but the few games Lamela missed after the international break were a real eye-opener for me.

It's not that I hadn't thought he'd been excellent all season. It's just that the extent to which he's integral to our first 11 hadn't quite dawned on me. Only when he was missing was it really clear.

The weird thing is, Lamela still loses possession and misplaces passes too often. He has an annoying habit of over-running when coming to collect a pass, misjudging the oncoming trajectory. His final ball is misplaced or intercepted too much in the channels.

And yet, so much of our hustle-bustle, our thrusting forward play, and our general shape comes from his mere presence on the pitch. A sort of controlled, skillful demented lunatic. And the bad parts of Lamela's game are like a boxer's missed punches - they might be missing, but they're keeping the other guy occupied, and eventually one will land.

 

[Damian99]

Should only be subbed as a last resort for me - his energy and constant hassling of players, especially when the game enters the last 20 minutes cannot be under estimated how much it has an effect on the whole team, if he's been subbed.

 

[Mark_Falco]

I don't know if I'm the only one, but the few games Lamela missed after the international break were a real eye-opener for me.

It's not that I hadn't thought he'd been excellent all season. It's just that the extent to which he's integral to our first 11 hadn't quite dawned on me. Only when he was missing was it really clear.

The weird thing is, Lamela still loses possession and misplaces passes too often. He has an annoying habit of over-running when coming to collect a pass, misjudging the oncoming trajectory. His final ball is misplaced or intercepted too much in the channels.

And yet, so much of our hustle-bustle, our thrusting forward play, and our general shape comes from his mere presence on the pitch. A sort of controlled, skillful demented lunatic. And the bad parts of Lamela's game are like a boxer's missed punches - they might be missing, but they're keeping the other guy occupied, and eventually one will land.

He can lose possession and make mistakes (as can the whole team which is largely overlooked) but I think that's always more likely to happen with a flair player - a risk taker, that's why soooo many players just play it safe all the time and whilst they'll rarely make errors they won't create much either. I actually believe that his unpredictability could also be his main strength as the opponent simply doesn't know what to expect (a rabona, a nutmeg, a burst of pace or a pass straight to him!), and it sets him apart from virtually everyone else in the league because uniquely he never lets a failed attempt at something put him off.
I'd love to watch him in training to see whether his admitted occasional lapses of concentration are purely match-day orientated by nerves or over zealous play in an attempt win, or whether he's the same in training. Anybody here watched him play training matches or know where there is some footage?
They do seem to happen more at the beginning of matches as he seems to need a bit of time to get up to the pace of the game, but nowadays his positive contributions so much outweigh any errors that I for one am more than happy to see him on the team sheet. Also MoPo seems to know what he's capable of too, and I ain't arguing against #theMagicMan!!

 

[voxy28]

I actually don't rate Lamela below Eriksen or Ali.... Lamela will chase the ball down in his area while Ali has become a bit more burn out lately..

Remember Lamela came on during the city game and made that through pass for Eriksen to finish. That's the the type of players u need in big games. Lamela should start when fit, no doubt about it. I know when he has the ball he will run at the defense and make those little passes and will press till the ball run out of play or retain possession. How many attacking players have those work rate? One last trait is his set piece..... When u need a outward swing from the left or inward swing from the right we've got Lamela while Eriksen provides the reverse.

He needs to improve on his shooting and this needs confidence... I am sure it will come. The player most likely at risk being frozen is Chadli if he doesn't up his game. Njie and Son still has not settle in.

 

[Larryjanta]

I've posted this a few times in this thread (and the Dembele thread) but so happy I was wrong about him. I wasn't in the "he's fucking useless, get rid, drive him there myself" bellendery we have in our fanbase (I'll support every one of our players whilst they're with us) but, still, I feel the need to fess up that I wouldn't have been upset if we sold him every time I write about him.

He's be good for most of this season but feel he's stepped up a gear over the last few weeks and I'm genuinely wondering where hit potential could go.

Looking at him now, I see a 25 goal/assist player in him which, coupled with his tenacity and tackling, could turn him into one of our most important players.

To answer some of the people who wonder why some don't admit they were wrong about it, just think back to the tits who seemed to revel in Harry's barren start of the season to gloat that they knew all along he was a one-season wonder. People hate being wrong

 

[THFCSPURS19]

could turn him into one of our most important players.

He already is.

 

[Larryjanta]

He already is.

OK, for me, *most* important players means maximum two. Our entire first XI from the weekend are massively important for us. As much as I've loved Lammy this season, I'd put him behind Harry, Dele, Dier, Hugo, Toby, Eriksen and Moussa.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

apologies if already posted

http://www.espnfc.co.uk/club/totten...s-spurs-undroppables-after-display-vs-man-utd

Fuck me, 2013... Feels like just yesterday when he signed. How time flies. To think we had Timmy time that season, how things have changed.

 

[raf18]

Should only be subbed as a last resort for me - his energy and constant hassling of players, especially when the game enters the last 20 minutes cannot be under estimated how much it has an effect on the whole team, if he's been subbed.

Scum at the library sums this up perfectly. Son came on (and he does work hard, as do all our players), few minutes later Ozil had just enough time to whip in a cross for the equaliser.

 

[yankspurs]

OK, for me, *most* important players means maximum two. Our entire first XI from the weekend are massively important for us. As much as I've loved Lammy this season, I'd put him behind Harry, Dele, Dier, Hugo, Toby, Eriksen and Moussa.

My love for Lamela aside, I'd rank him right up there with them, to be honest. We play like shit when ever he's not on the pitch. The difference in our play between when he is on the pitch, and when he comes off or doesnt play is very evident.

 

[yankspurs]

I don't know if I'm the only one, but the few games Lamela missed after the international break were a real eye-opener for me.

It's not that I hadn't thought he'd been excellent all season. It's just that the extent to which he's integral to our first 11 hadn't quite dawned on me. Only when he was missing was it really clear.

The weird thing is, Lamela still loses possession and misplaces passes too often. He has an annoying habit of over-running when coming to collect a pass, misjudging the oncoming trajectory. His final ball is misplaced or intercepted too much in the channels.

And yet, so much of our hustle-bustle, our thrusting forward play, and our general shape comes from his mere presence on the pitch. A sort of controlled, skillful demented lunatic. And the bad parts of Lamela's game are like a boxer's missed punches - they might be missing, but they're keeping the other guy occupied, and eventually one will land.

He's a flair player on the ball and he's getting consistently better on it. Remember, this is technically his 2nd full season in the league after being forced to watch the game ~90% of the time his first season due to injury and sherwood being his dim self. Next season's going to be so fun.

 

[Redfap]

I've posted this a few times in this thread (and the Dembele thread) but so happy I was wrong about him. I wasn't in the "he's fucking useless, get rid, drive him there myself" bellendery we have in our fanbase (I'll support every one of our players whilst they're with us) but, still, I feel the need to fess up that I wouldn't have been upset if we sold him every time I write about him.

He's be good for most of this season but feel he's stepped up a gear over the last few weeks and I'm genuinely wondering where hit potential could go.

Looking at him now, I see a 25 goal/assist player in him which, coupled with his tenacity and tackling, could turn him into one of our most important players.

To answer some of the people who wonder why some don't admit they were wrong about it, just think back to the tits who seemed to revel in Harry's barren start of the season to gloat that they knew all along he was a one-season wonder. People hate being wrong

I think Lamela is great and his effort, will to win and pressing is the best in the side. If he doesn't develop into one of the better attacking players in the EPL it won't be because he didn't put in the effort, which is very admirable. My only concern is whether he has the ability to consistently make the correct decision in the final third to make him that 25 goal/assist player in the league. 25 goal/assist puts him in the top category of attacking talent in the league. His single footedness also hurts him given that he often struggles to beat a defender with trickery or pace. I guess the jury is still out, but worst case scenario he is still an important 1st teamer at Spurs, which I can handle.

I don't think it is a big secret that the no.1 area that we can improve on is the 3 players behind Kane. We have had a great year, but it could be much closer in the league if we got a bit more out of those players. I hope that Lamela can raise his came another level next year and add class, finishing and clever decision making in the final 3rd to go with the 110% effort he puts in every week. I'm really looking forward to it.

Onwards and upwards Erik

Hopefully don't get labelled a hater for realistic critique of his game.

 

[Borks]

Any space on the soggy biscuit for me?

Lamela's commitment has helped create quite a few goals this season. I remember him winning the ball back while he was on the floor against Palace at home which led to the only goal of the game, he did the same for the first goal against United and as others have said his presence is sorely missed when he's not on the field. Love the bloke and hope he's at Spurs for many years to come.

 

[THFCSPURS19]

http://www.spursfanatic.com/blog/erik-lamela-premier-leagues-best-two-way-player/

Has Erik Lamela become the Premier League’s best two-way player?

 

[Dharmabum]

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features...t-see-it-youtube-compilations#:0fGYF34EJIQECA

There’s so much more to Erik Lamela than meets the eye – and you won’t see it in YouTube compilations.


The Argentine has proved himself one of Tottenham’s most improved players over the last season, writes Seb Stafford-Bloor – made all the more impressive by an often-testing history…

It's late June 2011 and El Monumental has descended into chaos. Following a 3-1 loss to Belgrano over over two legs, River Plate have been relegated for the first time in their 110-year history. The stadium is a physical representation of trauma: police fire water cannons at mutinous supporters, hooded youths are throwing unidentifiable objects towards the pitch and, encircled within a ring of stewards, River's first team sob uncontrollably.

Within that ugly spectacle, crouched over and in tears, was a teenage Erik Lamela. Having reached the end of his first full season with his boyhood club, it would be the last time he wore the team's iconic No.10 shirt.


Two months later, he had moved to Rome to begin life in Serie A. By August 2013, Lamela had hot-footed again and begun what would ultimately be a trying 18 months at Tottenham. The Argentine was willowy and wasteful, frail and fragile, clearly blessed with the technical ability to command a £30m transfer fee but with not nearly enough Premier League suitability to justify it.

Edited personality

Lamela’s story between then and now has been frequently recited. Injured under Andre Villas-Boas, distrusted by Tim Sherwood and eventually restored by Mauricio Pochettino, Lamela is a different beast these days. The old flecks of imperfection remain and traces of his flair heritage can still be spotted, but now iron-willed and nasty, the Argentine has become a teflon cog within Pochettino's relentless mechanism.

Lamela has been spoken about for a long time. A gem of River Plate's youth academy who attracted serious interest from Barcelona as a teenager, he has been assumed destined for the top of the game as long as his name has been known. What nobody realised then, however, was that it would be his personality rather than his flashy frills which would give him traction at the top of the sport.

In 2016, every player in the world seems to have his own YouTube compilation. Airbrushed and edited – and inevitably soundtracked to some EuroTrance nightmare – they are banal videos which make everyone look like a star.

So, when Lamela was signed by Tottenham and their supporters clamoured for a look at their new record signing's back catalogue, they saw a flashy winger with a millennial's haircut and big bag of tricks. That may not have been an entirely inaccurate depiction of Lamela, but what those videos were never able to show was his texture.

The qualities which have allowed him to rediscover his equilibrium at White Hart Lane are those which are exposed in tiny snippets, like in this extract from a Guardian interview in November 2014.

“There was talk, not only in the summer, but in December – people had spoken about me in Italy and stuff,” Lamela recalled. “But I’d spoken with my family and my girlfriend and we were all convinced that my time would come, that once I got over this injury I would be able to show what I could do. We were never going to leave this challenge.”

True grit

Lamela, you see, is not an ordinary footballer. The 24-year-old is betrayed by both his appearance and his technical proficiency: he is neither a flouncing, flakey show-boater, nor someone overly-enamoured with his own ability. His failures appear to make him stronger and his appetite for self-improvement is, in this age of entitlement and exaggerated self-worth, quite remarkable.

Dive through social media for long enough, for instance, and you'll find the videos showing him on the pitch in deserted stadiums after games, dancing with footballs under the dimming floodlights and honing his technique. They're sequences which belong in stylised Hollywood montages, but are rarely seen in the three-dimensional world.


But to appreciate Lamela’s reclamation project, it's important to appreciate the atmosphere within which it has occurred.

For a long time, he was unpopular at White Hart Lane. His errant touches would draw audible frustration from the stands and, actually, there were times when the relationship between the player and the supporters became distinctly uncomfortable – almost mutinous. When Marseille were rumoured to be close to signing him on loan in August 2015, his imminent departure seemed merciful. He had, by anybody's reckoning, suffered enough.


There’s a world outside

But then, that was to underestimate him and also, maybe, why that traumatic afternoon at El Monumental remains pertinent. English football culture is very insular and we consider our own Premier League, quite wrongly, to be an ultimate proving ground in which pressure and expectation collide at a terrifying apex.

But think of what Lamela endured and was exposed to – or, more specifically, consider the hardening effect of feeling such fierce footballing acrimony as a teenager? In sport, as they are in life, vivid experiences tend not only to linger in a person's consciousness, but also to shape their personality and guide their future.

Facing the same discontent, many other players would have left Tottenham at the earliest opportunity. Rather than pushing through the fire, they would have abandoned the challenge in England and re-glorified themselves in a more forgiving league. Lamela didn't and that, perhaps, is something too commonly overlooked.

While Pochettino and his coaching staff have had a profound influence on the player's trajectory, none of their instruction, direction or faith would have been worth anything had he himself not been receptive to it.

Change is good


And there has had to be a lot of change. In August 2013, after Lamela's move to England had been completed, journalist Paolo Bandini wrote: "Lamela still has room for improvement… most notably in the defensive side of the game. He was lax at times in tracking back for Roma, and it will be up to Villas-Boas whether to demand more from him in that department or simply position him in such a way that his responsibilities are reduced.”

When a perception like that exists, it's rarely corrected. Most players who fall into that category spend their entire careers being accommodated and are generally tolerated for who they are.

The counter-example that Lamela provides is rare. His improvement has been enabled by not only an unusual tolerance for adversity, but also a willingness to be broken down and rebuilt.

That malleability may be typical in more mundane players who regularly have to contort their shape for the sake of just having a career, but it's scarce in someone who was an Argentina international before his 20th birthday.

That kind of player floats to the top of the game, expects to be indulged and rarely takes on the mid-career challenge of altering his habits and traits. When asked to get fitter and work harder, that kind of player usually cannot call his agent quickly enough.

You’re so very special

It takes a special manager, then, to oversee such a change – but also a special person to be understand its necessity.

So Lamela is special. Maybe not in the dazzling Gareth Bale way that was anticipated but, through his range of career experiences and his personality blend, he has become something precious at White Hart Lane. He is the locking mechanism at the top of the formation, an attacking flourish when needed and also one of the hardest working flair players the Premier League has ever seen.

Maybe that fractious 2011 day in Buenos Aires meant nothing, maybe everything. Regardless, Lamela has allowed himself to be a symbol of the changing times at Tottenham: he is both his manager's and his own finest achievement.

More features every day on FFT.com • More Tottenham


Read more at http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features...e-it-youtube-compilations#GqZjYEjdRSpTLR68.99

 

[EQP]

Just watched today's training video and Erik has definitely been working hard in the gym, his lower body physique is

 

[rambu]

Just watched today's training video and Erik has definitely been working hard in the gym, his lower body physique is

enough to go all Ronaldo on his shorts?