Erik Lamela – The forgotten Argentine

Recently Spurs have been on a terrific run of form over the festive the season after a poor run of results leading up to the festive season. Obviously, Harry Kane has been a huge help with this, but is it just coincidence that Tottenham have been on great form since the return of the Argentine?

In recent times Spurs fan have been crying out for Tottenham to sign a new winger, someone with flair and who can beat his man. With players with these qualities such as Mahrez, Malcom and Zaha being linked. However, Spurs fans don’t realise they have this in Erik Lamela.

Erik, is one of those players that you will either love or hate and he has split fans opinions with his ability. He puts in a hardworking shift every game he plays, pressing the opposition and he creates some great chances. But it is easy to look past that as he gets booked very often for needless tackles and he does need to add more goals to his game. As many fans will compare him to Heung-Min Son who did score over 20 goals in all competitions last season.

In Pochettino’s second season in charge Erik Lamela was a regular starter for the side and played a big part in their title chase against Leicester and helping secure third place in the end. Whereas the new man that season Heung-Min Son did struggle to get game time and took time settling in.

The season after this unfortunately Erik Lamela picked up a serious injury keeping him out for a year, giving the Korean a great opportunity to become a regular starter. Which he did and to this day now is a very key figure to Tottenham’s young side, leaving Erik Lamela on the bench.

We are now into the January transfer window and Tottenham have not made any signings yet however we aren’t even halfway through the month yet so still plenty of time to make their move. French winger, Georges Kevin N’koudou, has moved away from the club on loan. Erik Lamela has also been linked with a move away from the club back to Italy with his former club Roma being linked.

However I don’t see Lamela going back to Italy as I believe Pochettino still thinks the Argentine has a huge part to play at Tottenham still being at least a very important squad player if not breaking into the starting 11 again.

For Lamela he will hope he can get back to top form mainly so he can get in Argentina’s world cup squad for this summer and there has been lots of reports that Spurs will be making a big statement signing moving into the new stadium. With one obvious link being former Spurs man, Gareth Bale. Playing on right hand midfield, the same as Lamela. Therefore, Lamela will have to be at his best.

Erik Lamela is currently not registered in the champions league squad for Tottenham and there has been many reports that he will be added to the squad for the forthcoming Juventus matches.

To conclude I think Spurs fans are so desperate for a big money signing that they have forgotten they already have a great player that they spent 30 million on that being Erik Lamela.