Re: Erik Lamela - Official
What do you expect to see for £30m? Genuine question.
for 30 million something more than just a solid , fairly technical and intelligent , team player
not sure what it is as all players are different and contribute to a team in different ways...but for 30 million and supreme hype given to this guy.....you would have thought that he would stick out more.
case in point , most of his passes when pressed were passed to safety and seem to be possession based driven, passes through corridors of opposition were only short ones...nothing that stood out that made you think...."whoa...", his first time passes were good to see but not really often enough..but that could easily be because of his team mates being viable options, havent seen his right foot and people said he was two footed....(holtby is two footed), a couple of times in isolation he tried to take on his guy and it quite frankly didnt even look like it was going to work...if it had come off though i would have been like "what the ****!!!!"
he's playing with guys tha are half his value or less and he doesnt stand out from them. if you were to ask someone not familiar with lamela to watch that game and totenham for the first time and said "did you see our record signing?" they'll probably say "not sure, what position did he play? i liked the guy in the middle though"
he had a solid all round team performance, nothing distinguishable for me
the irony is that even though eriksen has more experience than him both are roughly the same age and lamela has played in a "top league" longer...plus yesterday lamela actually played an old man's game. very composed, make good solid and safe decisions, aside from a couple of times he only took on his man when hs chances were in his favour and looked like the right time (which is good decision making), he had very good movement and is clearly very spatially aware, his play was geared towards a team game and keep things ticking over etc. he actually played the game of an experienced footballer
for 30 million? i would like more innovation, more confidence and bravery, more assertion on the game...when holtby first joined us.....and i think it was his debut against norwich ...he did this touch that set the team off and we scored...even with that i was like "this guy gives us more"..and i have always stuck by holtby even when the knee jerkers wanted him out.
you have to know your a 30 million pound player ...otherwise you dont play like it...you dont seperate yourself from the heard.
having said all that...if we payed 30 million for potential then i can probably understand why. in that lamela plays with more advanced mental understanding and appreciation of the game than his age suggests AND he is very capable of scoring goals and assisting (from a team building aspect with regards to the assist, speaking of which ....he looks more like a central player to me as opposed to a wing forward. maybe we need to have a look at his there?)
