Player Watch: Erik Lamela

[jolsnogross]

Lo Celso is endlessly better than him, but Lamela isnt a bad option from the bench.

 

[Gassin's finest]

His final ball was lacking, but his all round game was great.

 

[Gassin's finest]

It was interesting to see him line up behind Kane. I had been hoping for this for some time.

I felt he did fine. It was a decent outing but far from his best. He gave his all in effort, made some nice runs & retained the ball well, but like @Timberwolf said, his final ball was lacking. But for me, that's the exception. On other days, those balls would have been nailed on.

I just believe that the way we set up, doesn't suit Lamela.
He's more of a front foot player, not one to sit back & have the opposition come at him & the rest of the team.
He'd rather go at them whether he has the ball or not.

BTW, can't believe he wasn't booked for that late tackle on McTominay.

I genuinely think this applies to the most of our squad.

 

[buckley]

For me with Lamela on the pitch I thought we would go on to win when he went off and without his combative efforts we looked lightweight for me our best player one more note Harry needs two or three more games to get up to speed so we will have to battle on .
Gedson did not look up to it either now or before cv19 .
Dier was our best defender and it is my belief that most referees would not have given that penalty

 

[ebzrascal]

I think Lamela did pretty well in the game.. His energy, aggression and commitment were top class.. However despite his talent he ultimately lacks quality in a couple of important areas.. For me he always holds the ball when sometimes he should just play simple and look for another angle or make a run into space. His decision making and vision are also below the standard which would make him a great player. Personally I would move him on and repartee him with a more balanced creative midfielder.

 

[punkisback]

Yeah surprisingly is final through ball which I feel is his best asset was off.

 

[spursfan77]

Lo Celso is endlessly better than him, but Lamela isnt a bad option from the bench.

Yep. I think there is room in the team for both of them at times.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

When I watch Lamela I always wonder if we should have dropped him deeper earlier in his career and allowed him to be our ‘transition’ player. Too late now, but his ability to win and then carry the ball, and the aggression with which he does both, sounds more like a CM than an AM. Through in his refusal to use his right foot and a lot of the above sounds like Dembele.

As I said, way too late now, but he seems to have the attributes.

 

[hughy]

I think he played really well yesterday, final ball aside.

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I do like the niggly little fouls he commits in the middle of the pitch to break up play. They're incredibly crafty, and the fact that he tends to keep doing them until he's on a yellow but never carries on afterwards suggests he's a lot more disciplined than people give him credit for. Not sure how he wasn't booked yesterday, mind.

 

[danielneeds]

I think he played really well yesterday, final ball aside.

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I do like the niggly little fouls he commits in the middle of the pitch to break up play. They're incredibly crafty, and the fact that he tends to keep doing them until he's on a yellow but never carries on afterwards suggests he's a lot more disciplined than people give him credit for. Not sure how he wasn't booked yesterday, mind.

Yesterday was kind of a microcosm of his career. All the tenaciousness and aggression which make you go, "Yeah, get in there, Coco." And then all the frustrating missed passes and fluffed opportunities which make you go, "Argh, Coco, you ****." Honestly, if he'd gone off injured it would have been wrapped in a bow.

 

[bubble07]

His final ball was lacking, but his all round game was great.

I regularly defend him with my spurs mates and had to defend him yesterday but he wasn't great. He worked very hard, got about the pitch, unsettled their midfield which I would expect as a minimum from all our players. The fact that our other players were not doing that doesn't mean lamela was great.

He needs to improve his end product and he seems better coming off the bench then when he starts

He does like a forward pass which is great but the execution hasn't been good enough. If your a forward player you will stop making runs because chances are he wont find you

 

[Timberwolf]

This is the quintessential Lamela post-game post. And my post is the quintessential pro-Lamela passive aggressive reposte.

But he really was one of the best players out there today, why can’t we just appreciate him as a key member of the squad and let that be that? We were winning when he came off, he drove the team on in the first half, didn’t have a perfect game but no less perfect than any other player out there. Why always such a big hoo ha with Lamela?

The quintissential post-game post is probably "Lamela is shit - we need to upgrade".

I wasn't even slagging him off - more commenting on the Lamela conundrum. I was actually full of praise and said he was our best player in the first half. It's just that if you read some of the posts in this thread over the past month you have some people describing him as some incredible talent with superb passing and an incredible shot - which simply isn't true.

I really like Lamela and he's a great player to have in the squad but he will also always flatter to deceive and frustrate. It's just who he is.

 

[H-SF]

Today proves why he should be nothing more than a sub. I love Lamela, but being brutally honest he is nowhere near good enough to start if we want to match our ambitions. I’d let him go and replace him with Willian for free in a heartbeat

 

[rossdapep]

I think its time.
He used to offer some nice through balls but other than his tenacity we can't rely on him for creativity.

 

[PeeEyeEmPee]

He's been here for 7 years now, and I still don't really know what it is he does or brings to the team. I really don't want to hear about his "tenacity" or "aggression" either, because we bought him for £30m when that actually meant something, and for that you expect SOME sort of tangible quality. He has 33 goals and 31 assists for us in that time, for an average of less than 5 each per year. Numbers aren't everything, of course, but these are awful.

Some of you will defend him though, and cite all the other things he supposedly does, and here lies my problem. We have too many players that "do the things that go unnoticed" but deliver very little by way of actual tangible end-product. He's not the only one, of course. There's Winks, Sissoko, Alli, Moura, Davies and Aurier too. Basically, take Kane and Son away and there's not a single other player in the team that can be relied on to be productive or effective on anything like a regular basis. I don't mean just goals and/or assists either, but genuine creativity too. We get absolutely nothing from Lamela that we couldn't get from anyone in his position at any of the relegation-thretened clubs.

 

[ardiles&villa]

Lamela out and coutinho on loan in

 

[Bobbins]

He's desperately struggling with this utterly static team we've now got. He's holding on to the ball forever waiting for someone - anyone - to make a run, move a bit, but everything in front of him is stuck still, so he's got nowhere to go but sideways.

He's always played better against the bigger teams, as the games used to have more ebb and flow and movement to them. With our current team there's not much he can offer - we're static with the ball and balls deep without surrendering possession looking for the odd counter.

He's suffered in much the same way Son and Kane have with the downgrading of our forward play and the loss of Eriksen.

 

[emiley heskey]

He's desperately struggling with this utterly static team we've now got. He's holding on to the ball forever waiting for someone - anyone - to make a run, move a bit, but everything in front of him is stuck still, so he's got nowhere to go but sideways.

He's always played better against the bigger teams, as the games used to have more ebb and flow and movement to them. With our current team there's not much he can offer - we're static with the ball and balls deep without surrendering possession looking for the odd counter.

He's suffered in much the same way Son and Kane have with the downgrading of our forward play and the loss of Eriksen.

There's atleast 3 players in front of him today in couple of occasions and he failed to make a pass every time ..

 

[ILS]

[

He's desperately struggling with this utterly static team we've now got. He's holding on to the ball forever waiting for someone - anyone - to make a run, move a bit, but everything in front of him is stuck still, so he's got nowhere to go but sideways.

He's always played better against the bigger teams, as the games used to have more ebb and flow and movement to them. With our current team there's not much he can offer - we're static with the ball and balls deep without surrendering possession looking for the odd counter.

He's suffered in much the same way Son and Kane have with the downgrading of our forward play and the loss of Eriksen.

He has been here for 7 years and never once would anyone have said he is a player who is a must have in the starting line up. Yes he has his good games and when we had the high pressing it suited him at the time but he is another one of our players who has been here two years too long.

Bearing in mind how painfully slow he is compared to other attacking players within the premiership , you would expect him to play with his head up quicker but he doesn't. Instead he feels the need to use the unnecessary futsal sole drag to slow his travelling with a ball down even more.

I would sell him in the summer.

 

[jolsnogross]

He's desperately struggling with this utterly static team we've now got. He's holding on to the ball forever waiting for someone - anyone - to make a run, move a bit, but everything in front of him is stuck still, so he's got nowhere to pass to

He's one of the most static players we have. Always taking an extra couple of touches, slowing everything down.

There was a time when he wasn't just a waste of a place in the side, he actively hindered us. Then he had a little resurgence and wasn't so useless. But overall, he is average in this shite Spurs period and well below average at Premier League level. He was never a key first teamer in all his time here. And he never will be.

I don't think there's a side like Bournemouth or Everton paying big sums for dreck anymore. So we cant expect much of a fee for him. But itd be good to get him off the books. And good luck to him.