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I liked Erik Lamela before it was cool

Spurmac1974 said:
Can we do better though? Is there anyone out there who can be an improvement on him or at least push him on more?
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On individual skill sets, probably.
A better passer, finisher, tackler and even a harder worker are all out there.
Problem is I don't see anyone who is better than him in all those areas. Most are good at two and crap at the other two. That's why he's so important to us, it's like two good players instead of one fantastic offensive player who can't or won't track or tackle or great worker tackler with limited passing or finishing.
And that's before we talk about his mentality.
 
It's a hard one this, Alli has been class with Kane so can't be moved from the No. 10 role but, as has been said before, Lamela is just tailor made to be our No. 10.

Big improvements this season, hopefully more ro come.
 
spurs' magna carter said:
It's a hard one this, Alli has been class with Kane so can't be moved from the No. 10 role but, as has been said before, Lamela is just tailor made to be our No. 10.

Big improvements this season, hopefully more ro come.
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I don't see what's wrong with him starting wide right, when we're on form none of the front four positions are static, he roams when it's called for but can also hold his position with discipline. There's definitely bigger priorities concerning the squad to be looking at.
 
Erik Lamela became Tottenham's ideal pressing midfielder this season

Erik Lamela may not be scoring like a £26m signing, but this year he's turned the corner and become one of Spurs' best all-around midfielders.

Cartilage Free Captain is once again reviewing each of Spurs' first team players and evaluating their 2015-16 season. The series continues today with Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Erik Lamela.

Erik Lamela
Goals: 11 (5 league, 6 Europa)
Assists: 10
Cards: 10 (10 yellow, 0 red)
Hair Gel: 5 liters

What Went Right?
This was the season where everything started to click for Erik Lamela. It's a minor miracle, considering that Lamela was very nearly loaned out to Marseille this summer and was only kept because the Saido Berahino transfer fell through. You could watch Lamela's understanding of Pochettino's tactical system and his growth as a player improve with each passing week until he not only established himself as a regular starter for Spurs, but became an integral cog in Tottenham's offense.

Lamela transformed himself from the flashy, offense-first midfielder that we saw at Roma to a high-intensity, defensively solid, midfield pressing terrier this season, and he embraced the role fully. Watching Lamela harry opposition midfielders and defenders with the ball was amazing. He was at times relentless, going after the ball with sometimes reckless abandon, and finding open teammates to quickly start counter-attacks. Perhaps only Mousa Dembele more perfectly encapsulated the Pochettino pressing midfielder this season.

Part of that transformation also meant Lamela was perfectly willing to look for open teammates in the attacking channels and making that perfectly-weighted through ball or chipped lob. I don't know how many hockey assists he had (I'm not sure if anyone actually tracks those) but I know he had a bunch this season.

All that and he only scored five league goals.

There's probably nothing Erik Lamela can do to justify the fact that was bought for €30m from Roma three seasons ago. He's still probably not a €30m midfielder, at least not in the scoring-lots-of-goals sense. But this season he's certainly closed that gap, becoming almost the perfect Pochettino Midfielder™, and that's saying something.

What Went Wrong?
One of the consequences of the new Stuck-In Erik Lamela (with Kung-Fu Grip!) is that at times that edgy streak that he played with crossed the line. It's not that Lamela played dirty (though Cesc Fabregas might disagree after Lamela trod on his foot during the Battle of the Bridge), but Lamela's tenacious press and defending on occasion led to some dumb tackles and some really cheap cards. That's kind of part and parcel with that style of play – if you press that ferociously you should expect to pick up a few cheap yellows – and it's worth noting that in the ten cards he picked up in this year's campaign, not a single one of them was red.

The other knock on Lamela is that, despite scoring ten goals this season, it still feels like he should be banging them in more than he is. I know that's no longer his role, and the role he IS playing is a pretty darned good one, you still get the sense that he's not quite fulfilling his potential.

What now?
Lamela has been a good case study on why you shouldn't give on players too early. He went from injured, adjusting, and out-of-his-depth to middling, capable, and this season to exceptional and assured. He can still grow, though, and he'll get the opportunity to test himself against Champions League quality opposition next season.

Lamela's learned how to press and how to pass, but his value to Spurs will really skyrocket if he starts shooting more often. There's a 15-20 goal scorer in there somewhere; we saw it at Roma. If he continues to work the way he did this season, there's no reason why we can't expect even more development from our faux-hawked, baby-faced Argentine midfielder next year.

Rating: 4.5 Chirpys
4.5-chirpys.0.jpg


http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnatio...ottenham-hotspur-season-in-review-erik-lamela

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After all his contributions this season, Lamela's target next season should be to score atleast 10 league goals.
 
Yep, if he could up his goal output in the league from the 5 he got last time to 10-12, we'd have an amazing player on our hands. He does everything else.
 
If he can improve on this year, even if he doesn't score 10-12 goals but creates more, I'll be ecstatic. We're not exactly short in the goals department and we'll get a couple more goal scorers over the summer. I'm worried if he starts focusing on scoring the other aspects of his game might suffer and we can afford that much less than him not scoring more PL goals.
 
Started last night for Argentina in their only warm up game before the Copa America.
Played mostly on the right in a 4231.
 
Rorschach said:
Kane/Eriksen/Lamela/Dier - who's gonna be our free taker next year?
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Whoever sees the quick opening. Those not near the ball ought to be making themselves available, and at speed.

We (Spurs/England) lose so much time on setting up every kick.
 
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