Re: Erik Lamela - Official
Is there any chance that we can stop comparing Townsend directly to Lamela?
It's a bit silly at this point. One is a £30m full Argentinian international that's been considered a starlet for years. The other is also young, but at a completely different level of his development.
They are also almost entirely different players. They're both comfortable out on the wing: there, the similarities end. Townsend is a surprisingly good dribbler, jinking and twisting past players almost at will. However, he's also very 'head down', in that he doesn't see much end to his dribbling beyond bamboozling the defence and blasting the ball towards the net. Occasionally, he'll slip a great inside pass to Walker, but that's about it.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like in that approach: direct, forceful, pacy. Exactly what we need when we're struggling to pass our way through a tough side.
However, Lamela, as he proved today, is a different player entirely: almost always receiving the ball with his head up, looking for options, and possessed of the ability to pass perfectly into the feet of one of our forwards without needing a lot of time or space. He's a visionary playmaker we've stationed out on the wing, and he's got both pace to burn and a surprisingly sturdy physical frame he uses well when competing for headers and stray balls. I was hesitant about his ability to settle in quickly, and still am to a degree, but I'm very, very excited by what this lad could become in the next few years before being sold to our parent club Real.
Both are good options, with one perhaps slightly more useful to us presently than the other. But they've both got worth in their own individual fields, and are very different players indeed.
